Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Sit down!

I am not one to complain a ton. Yes, as a human I tend to complain about things like the weather and other such nonsense. There is something that I find disturbing though. As of right now, the United States Congress is in a complete deadlock over how to fix the money problem so the government does not go into default on the debt it has. So far, myriad proposals have been sent to the legislatures and have all been denied. I do not want to tell them how to do their job, I'm sure it is a difficult one, and I will refrain from hitting the "panic mode" button because I know that the Congress will arrive at some reasonable conclusion prior to the deadline of August 2nd. What I wish to say is...HURRY UP! There was a situation not long ago where the Congress was stalled on a budget decision, that could have cost many people, including some close to me, alot of money. Now, they face a similar situation where millions may not be paid again. I realize the security risk of having all 100 Senators and 435 Representatives in office at the same time, but this is an important matter with very little time to spare. My suggestion is that if every seat in both houses are not filled, then they need to recall those duly elected representatives and have everybody deciding this matter. Once this matter is resolved, resume your normal lives. I would say it is comparable to a business about to go into default on it's loans. They call everyone together and figure out how to fix the situation.

On that note, I do have one idea that may ease the debt and I know many will not be happy with it, but it's just an idea: Put a 1% Federal Sales tax on everything. 1% isn't much if you think about it, instead of paying $1.53 for that soda you just bought, pay $1.54. Most people, when they see a penny on the ground, or get a penny back from a purchase, they throw it into the penny collection thing at the counter. Consider this statistic, according to the US Census Bureau (http://www2.census.gov/retail/releases/historical/marts/adv1012.pdf) Americans spent $380 Billion dollars in December 2010 in the retail market. Now, 1% of that is 3.8 billion dollars. If you multiply that number by 12 month you get 45.6 billion extra dollars of funding for the US government per year. I know that isn't much compared to the 14 trillion dollar debt, but that is something.

Like I have said before, and will say again, the opinion here is mine, but I am willing to share.
Laterz.