I recently received a letter from my Congressman, Doug Lamborn – R-CO. He opens by stating that he is concerned with the direction our country is going in, like me.  And then he outlines his solution to the ‘fix’ the direction, said ‘fix’ being the direction I am concerned is the wrong way.

What I find most objectionable is his comparison of the Federal Budget with a household budget. Take away eight  ‘0’s at the end of the federal budget and you have an easily understood household budget.   I object to any comparison of a governmental budget to a household budget. The two are not the same and glibly waving your hands over the numbers is not going to make it true. I would also like to suggest that if you insist upon using a household budget analogy, cutting spending is not the only way to reduce accumulating debt. Go out and get a job.  Increasing revenue is a much better and more efficient method of reducing new debt and in addition to some spending cuts it may even work to reduce the overall debt over time.  (And one of the last things you need to spend money on is on a new high-tech, state-of-the-art security system for your home when you are drowning in debt.)

And while I am thinking about it, not only are governments not budgeted and managed like households, they aren’t budgeted and managed like businesses or corporations. An efficient government is not a desired end result, an effective government is. Businesses have different goals and objectives and they need to satisfy different parties to reach those goals.

I think it is fair to say that the Congressman and I do not see things the same way.

My congressman has some more forward thinking on his web site. 

I will add some commentary between the lines

3 Point Plan to Grow the Economy

Tax Relief: Across-the-Board Tax Cuts

• Cut all non-defense spending

No, cut most defense spending and review what other should be reduced.

• Permanently repeal the death tax

No, impose a rather steep estate tax on estates valued at more than $10 Million. You’re dead, you don’t care.

• Make the Bush tax cuts permanent

No, wipe the Bush tax cuts out of the lexicon and look at going back to the good old days of Eisenhower when America was number one. 

• Reduce or eliminate the corporate tax rate to 25% or lower (from 35% – the second highest in the industrialized world)

Yes, reduce the corporate tax rate to 25% as long as the corporation pays its tax on the profits it reports to shareholders and not the dividend amounts. And no exceptions or loopholes.

• Reduce or eliminate tax rates on capital gains and dividends

Don’t tax capital gains and dividends that are reinvested in securities and financial instruments regulated by the SEC. Tax capital gains and dividends as ordinary income when the monies are moved out of the security domain.

Energy: Increase Domestic Energy Production

• Expand availability of the Outer Continental Shelf and Alaska for oil and gas development

No, let us exploit the rest of the world’s oil until we drain them dry, keeping out oil shales in reserve.

• Develop clean coal technologies

This is an oxymoron by definition burning fossil fuels is not clean. You can develop cleaner methods.

• Increase safe nuclear energy in America

Yes, but the first thing to plan for the safe disposal of the waste.

• Promote safe, efficient production of natural gas, including the use of hydraulic fracturing

Yes, but this will require a lot of governmental oversight to ensure safe production. Safe production is more important than efficient production. Given what is planned in Colorado, where water is a precious commodity, the idea of my well water being contaminated and my not knowing or finding out until the drilling company has picked up and moved on worries me.

• Support production of renewable energy, such as hydro, wind, and solar power

Yes, these are especially useful in Colorado.   But we shouldn’t be supporting these renewable energy sources by crony capitalism or gaming-the-system tax incentives.

Market Stability: Restore Stability to the Markets

Business investment is paralyzed by the threat of increased government regulations and mandates.

Disagree, business investment is paralyzed by the uncertainty of regulation not the threat of regulation. The Republicans should stand up for the People and promise business that they will be regulated in a fair and straightforward manner. (And protecting  their proprietary interests over others is not fair)

• Reject higher taxes on energy because of the cap-and-trade bill

Rejecting higher taxes for the sake of rejecting taxes is not constructive. There are unacknowledged costs to energy production that need to be addressed and Superfunds may need to be established to handle long-term cleanup.

• Reject higher taxes and costly regulations as part of the healthcare bill

Go to a single-payer healthcare system for basic healthcare, i.e. make everyone a part of Medicare, impose a payroll tax on all wages to cover it (~20% combined SSA and Medicare payroll tax should provide the needed funds) and get business out of the providing healthcare business. 

• No higher taxes for businesses that operate internationally

But businesses should be taxed on the international profits they bring home.

• No job-killing changes to labor law, including card check and binding arbitration

As long as the labor laws are fair to labor.

 

Remember the basics:

 

We the People of the United States, in Order to

• form a more perfect Union,
• establish Justice,
• insure domestic Tranquility,
• provide for the common defence,
• promote the general Welfare, and
• secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.