It's Time to Reconsider this "Fair Share" Business.

Now before you go and get all "Occupy" on me, let me explain. When Obama rolls out Bill Gates buddy, Warren Buffet and his secretary and says, "Why should Warren not pay as much in taxes as his secretary" he's right. In fact, I would say he is absolutely right on the money. Well, maybe not the money, but the concept. "Let me be clear",if your income comes from investments and you are currently offered a tax rate of 15%, but your secretary, who earns her paycheck as an hourly or salary paycheck, then I see no reason why you should not both pay the same tax rate. I'm sorry but it's the truth. Warren Buffet's secretary should not be paying one percentage point more than Warren is.

You see, Obama and his administration have framed the question to gain a simple emotional response. "Fair Share" is nothing more than an emotional statement; he's right about it, but he has framed the question ass backwards. The real question is why should Warren's secretary pay any more as a percentage of her income than Warren does, not the other way around.

In order to retake control of the conversation we simply need to, SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT! I am growing sick of listening to Romney, Santorum and Gingrich allow this debate to be framed by Obama. This is simple third grade stuff here. When people say, "Stay out of the water because your cloths will get wet", simply make the statement real. "Stay out of the water or you might drown". Both are true statements but both are separated by degrees of importance.

The next time Obama says, "Fair Share" one of these second tier GOP hopefuls needs to make the point stronger, "What is fair about overtaxing the middle class". Two wrongs don't make a right. Increasing the taxes on one group to make the other group "feel" better about how hard they are getting hosed by the IRS isn't the way to sell this idea. Make the point, one of you, that the largest percentage of taxes being paid are being paid by the top 1% of income earners. Make the point that the middle class pays a percentage twice to three times as high as those 1% earners and that "fair" means that is you can amass that much wealth with a low tax rate, hell everyone should have their "equal opportunity" to earn that wealth by playing under the same rules. If 15% is good for the rich then it's good enough for me. I could buy more things, invest more money and reduce the need for Social Security to take care of me in the future (reducing the need for SSI and Medicare) if I had more of my disposable income, LIKE THE RICH.

There are just 412 billionaires in this country. Ya, I know, seems small. But it's the facts according the US Census Bureau. Their average wealth is just $1.7 Billion in total assets. Lets do some math. 412 x 1.7 = $700.4 Billion. That's pretty high isn't it? Not really. It would run the Federal Government of the United States for 70.4 days. Ya, a little more than 2 months. We will spend under the new $3.8 Trillion dollar Obama 2011/2012 Fiscal Year budget, $10.4 Billion a day. We better go fishing in a deeper hole here.

Let's go after the Millionaire too. There are 20.4 million millionaires in the US, again this is according to the 2010 census. They have an average wealth of $3.4 million each. Well we found the deep hole this time. That's $6.9 Trillion dollars. Oh ya, big money. It we took all the money from all the millionaires and billionaires in America we could run the US Government for a whopping 2 whole years. Yep, $700 Billion plus $6.9 Trillion is a big $7.6 Trillion dollars and with Obama's newest budget proposal of $3.8 Trillion for next year we could do his budget back to back without borrowing a dime from China if we just took it all away from those greedy rich bastards.

But then what? Well they hold a big chunks of our total worth, but not that much. It is estimated that the US is worth $200 Trillion. See chart here: http://rutledgecapital.com/2009/05/24/total-assets-of-the-us-economy-188-trillion-134xgdp/

(For those without a computer it is a chart showing about $145 trillion in financial assets in America and $46 trillion in tangible assets, homes, property building boats etc.)

Well great, but look, only about a quarter of it is hard assets. The rest is all financial assets. If we take all the money from the millionaires and billionaire those financial assets won't be worth anything to anyone because the folks who understand it will all be on the streets. That leaves us with the $46 Trillion in hard "tangible" assets. But wait, if all the people with the money to by major tangible assets are now broke that means the demand for those things is gone... I remember something they tried to teach me in high school about supply and demand.. what was that. Oh ya, not demand, not value of the supply. UT OH.

Maybe taking everything away from the rich isn't such a good idea after all.

Well let's see what our options are.

War: We could invade someone with more wealth with us? That's a short list.

Print more money: Looks like that plan has ran it's course already. The dollar has devalued over 90% since the Great Depression.

Borrow it for the time being: Welcome to the Obama plan that is already running at a rate of $1.7 Trillion this year and probably more next year. At some point the lender is going to say, "Aaah, I don't think so". Actually the lenders won't do that unless something crazy like our credit rating were to fall... Oh ya, that happened last year and might happen again next year. Oops.

Reduce Spending: Wait a minute. I've heard this one somewhere before. Oh yes, I remember it so clearly.)()()()()()()()()()( go back in time with me )()()()()()()()()( back to the inauguration of one Barrack Obama... "by the end of my first term I will cut deficit spending in half." At that time deficit spending was running $500 billion a year on average under President Bush. This new budget shows $1.7 trillion in deficit spending. I'm guessing someone has subtraction and multiplication confused.

Looks folks, I hate to be the party killer here but we were over spending too much under Bush. Under Obama we have multiplied that over spending by a factor (I remember factors were a big deal in school) of 3. This is not the remedy to a problem.

Let's put it in a perspective most folks can understand. You make $50K a year. Your bills are $75K a year. You borrow $25K a year from your friend. Next year you want to spend $90K on stuff you don't need but your income is dropping to $45K a year. How exactly does this help you get out of the debt you have already?

The US government makes about $2.1-2.3 trillion a year in tax revenue and other fees (this includes the money it makes off oil leases etc. (I thought a few of you might want to hear the Big Bad Oil Companies are paying taxes twice, one to get the oil and then again in taxes when they sell it) If we are spending $3.8 trillion this year, that's a one year deficit of around $1.5-1.7 trillion. Add this to the $16 trillion we already owe and this should all make sense. You see we can't keep doing this.

We need to do what you would do at home. Look at what you have to have (and then apply the Constitution filter to it and see what your actual responsibilities are and stick to just them) and do without the rest. We have promises that we as a society have made, Social Security etc, but there are some things that are not the Federal Government's responsibility. Neither is Roads (except the Federal Highway System) or Eduction (that is actually a state issue) And certainly not Healthcare. Obamacare is going to cost us another 900 Billion a year. I don;t care what Obama says about it being 1 trillion over 10 years. Medicare is supposed to be running us $65billion right now according to the 1966 projections into the 21st century. So it the CBO botched that one by a factor (there's that word again) of 10 why should we believe they are right on Obamacare?

Medicare- $835 Billion this year.

Social Security- $725 Billion this year.

Military Spending- $750 Billion this year (and actually enumerated as a responsibility of the Federal Government)

These three make up, are you ready, 63% of the Federal Budget. Yes, 63%, that's nuts. Then there is the 200plus Billion in interest on the debt we already have, 405 billion on "other mandatory spending" and finally, the all important "discretionary spending" of $645 Billion. This is a big 18% of the budget and this is the place where Congress spends all its time. Every time you hear, "We are going to cut spending" it is this slice of the budget our elected officials are talking about. That's like being a hoarder with a house full of cat crap and your biggest worry is the upstairs coat closet.

If we don't cut spending and I mean all spending, we are doomed. Doomed... Doomed...

But what would I know; I'm just an Average American (one of the ones Obama doesn't believe can understand the problem... Oh I understand it just fine Sir... You are the problem)