Funding Economic Stability and Job Growth
Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 11:50AM March 12, 2008
Categories: Q-and-A Club: Exploring Social and Political Issues
By Arlene Harder, MFT
TAX-AND-SPEND GAME CATEGORY SEVEN
- To understand what this topic is all about, read:
How Will the Election Change Our Taxes?
Rules of the Tax-and-Spend Game
- You can see the same questions I raise today if you go to Funding Economic Stability and Job Growth in the Q-and-A Club section of the Support4Change website. There you will also be able to access all eleven categories of the game that I post on this blog every-other-day.
- Play the Tax-and-Spend Game and enter a drawing. See form below.
- Share the Tax-and-Spend Game with your family and friends so they can better decide what programs they want the government to fund and what programs they are willing to do without if they don’t want to their taxes raised.
How do you want your taxes to be spent in order to help create economic stability and job growth?
We are currently going through rough economic times, perhaps a recession, as anyone knows who’s lost a job or who has cancelled a long-planned vacation because the dollar has fallen significantly against the EURO. And the collapsing housing market may not have hit bottom yet.
So if you are losing your house because you’ve gotten in over your head, do you want the government to help bail you out? That hope may have some logic to it, for after all, the ripple effect through the economy has been significant. A strong housing market is a basic component of a strong economy. Likewise, a weak housing sector is evidence of a weak economy.
But if you did not buy a house because you felt you couldn’t afford it, while others speculated and assumed the price of houses would always go up, are you sympathetic enough with those who are losing their homes to want the government to step in? With your tax dollars?
Of course, the problems in a global economy will not be easy to solve with a few adjustments in mortgage rates. So this may be a good time to have a discussion about our low savings rate; our desire to buy ever more material things on credit; our willingness to treat our homes as an ATM machine, as one letter to the editor stated in the Los Angeles Times; our desire to earn and consume more than the rest of the world; and our assumption that government will always come to the rescue.
Do we really practice capitalism if government programs help shore up the economy? In fact, with all the subsidies and special benefits given to one industry or business over another, do we really have a free market?
Someone taking home a paycheck based on the minimum wage won’t likely think of that as government interference in the marketplace, even though it is. Of course, most would agree that some kind of safety net is not a bad thing. So the question is, how much should government help people when citizens are caught in a bind?
We count on unemployment insurance and retraining programs when we lose a job. We are glad to collect Social Security even though we collect more, on average, than we’ve paid into the fund because we are living longer. Again, this problem is one we seem to be putting onto the shoulders of our children and grandchildren.
It seems that the question in this category of the Tax-and-Spend Game is one of degree. So when you look at the programs below, consider how much you think these are essential to our economy and how much they are “band aids” that keep citizens from taking on more responsibility for their own financial well-being.
If you are aware of other programs funded by local, state, and/or national taxes that help sustain and promote a strong economy and essential jobs that are not included in this list, please let me know. Use the Contact Us form.
Shore up Social Security
- Management of unemployment and disability insurance
- Running of effective postal service
- Stimulus programs to prevent and moderate recession and inflation forces
- Farm subsidies
- Job creation programs for those who’ve lost their jobs through such forces as outsourcing
- Job training programs for emerging markets
- Enforcement of employment laws (such as fines for employment of illegal aliens)
- Regulate national business conducted overseas
- Support of technology research to fund future economic programs
- Enforcement of tax laws (especially in the collection of billions in unpaid taxes)
- Equal opportunity employment enforcement against sex, race, age, culture, and religion
- Investment in research and technology to solve problems like climate change and genetic diseases and to create jobs
Enter a drawing for “Ask Yourself Questions and Change Your Life” after you have finished this category of the Tax-and-Spend Game
Each week I will give away my latest book, Ask Yourself Questions and Change Your Life. All you have to do is to complete one of the eleven Tax-and-Spend Game categories and fill out this form.
NOTE #1: All fields are required.
NOTE #2: I will not share your name with anyone and I won’t put you on my newsletter list unless you subscribe yourself on the subscription form on Support4Change Newsletter or on the blog’s Welcome page. This is just information I need for this one drawing, but if you don’t give me your correct email address I won’t be able to contact you if you win.
NOTE #3: You can enter as often as you like, but each entry must be for a different Tax-and-Spend Game category
Hope you enjoy the Tax-and-Spend Game and learn something in the process. I’d love to hear what you think about it. Add a comment to this page or use the Contact Us form on Support4Change to send me your comments or ask a question.
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