Sanchez and Others Further Goals of Political Elites

Yesterday I was driving along to a Job site when I heard Rick Sanchez on the Radio talking about how Millionaires get away with only paying 10 and 15% in income taxes.  So I promptly called up WIOD and explained to him that he was mistaken, when people invest.... oops, he cut me off and hung up on me and proceeded to say "... In the Cayman Islands and other places to hide their money and keep from paying taxes".

Wow, I thought to myself.  Is this guy REALLY this misinformed or is he just trying to gain a Populist position to increase his ratings.  After all, he did just recently take up the 3PM to 6PM slot on WIOD.  I was heartened to hear that many of those calling tried to set him straight on how income earned ANYWHERE in the world, had to be paid by U.S. Citizens.  Even if that income was earned outside of this country and we are one of a very few countries that actually does this.  As an example, a French or British citizen living and earning money in the U.S. isn't subject to French or British taxes, but the reverse is not true!  We REALLY have one of the worst taxing structures in the country.  Back to the story though, next thing you know there was a guy that called and agreed with Rick.  He proclaimed that he worked for a Private Equity Fund, where the Millionaires did nothing but try to avoid taxation by "hiding" funds in other countries.

I tried calling back but of course they wouldn't take my calls anymore so I guess I'll have to rage against the machine here on MY format.

So here's what I would have said, if I had actually had a chance to talk.

First of all Rick, getting a paycheck is not the same as investing in a Private Equity Fund, Mutual Fund or any other kind of investment.  Why?  Because just as you didn't walk into WIOD and hand them over a Million dollars to invest in their operation, the average working stiff doesn't INVEST in his employer.  He's just there with his hand out at the end of the week asking to get paid for the time he put in.  You see Rick, once you get your paycheck and AFTER you've already paid your taxes on that paycheck (which for you probably averages around 30+ Percent) you can now choose to invest that leftover money in some sort of Mutual Fund or other investment that will hopefully create jobs somewhere.  Rick, are you telling me that we should tax that money which you are essentially GAMBLING in some sort of investment, at the same levels of taxation as regular income?  

Of course not, this is why we have preferential treatment for investments, because otherwise what's the point in taking a gamble, if when you win the Government is going to take half?  As for "Hiding" investments in other countries, I think that people are making business decisions based upon the confiscatory nature of our Federal Government.  If Norway is charging their companies HALF the taxes that we do, doesn't it make business sense to move some of your manufacturing there?  Ask the guys that made the two biggest cruise ships in the world, and they would probably tell you that they wouldn't be able to compete if they made those ships in the U.S. because of the tax and regulatory hurdles.  The same goes for almost any manufacturing operation.  Just look at what Canada is doing.  Even though their dollar has risen by almost 40% in the past 10 years, manufacturing in Canada is up.  Why?  They've lowered Corporate Rates to around 25% (15% Federal and around 10% Provincial).  Here's the kicker.  Even with the lowered rates, revenue is up from all the additional economic activity.  To top it off, even though we, their biggest trading partner have been mired in a deep recession, they've managed to maintain an unemployment rate of around 2% lower than we have, despite the fact that historically Canada has had an unemployment rate of around 3% HIGHER than we have!

Dial Back Spending to 2005 Levels and it will match our Revenues

So here's the thing, STOP empowering Politicians by repeating their claims as facts.  Corporate tax rates in the U.S. are higher than all G7 Nations, tax collection in the U.S. is projected to be 2.7 Trillion, a record, yet as usual they're spending a Trillion over that amount!  The real problem isn't tax collection, it's the insane levels of spending.  Does anyone even realize that since his first year in Office, Obama has spent nearly a Trillion dollars each and every year MORE than what Bush spent for 7 out of 8 years?  We RARELY see reporters talk about how cuts are NEVER cuts, the politicians create a baseline budget of 3 to 10% above the previous year and if the number is less than that it's called a cut, even though it's actually an increase.  The ONLY reason they're able to get away with this lie over and over again is because of people like Rick Sanchez and other media types that REPEAT the lie.

No Deal Pending on Sequestration, Because of the Opportunity it Presents

Joe Scarborough got it got it right, when he said that America won't remember the Sequester of 2013 "as some cataclysmic fiscal event", but when he goes on to say about the Republicans that "you would think its leadership would have taken to heart Mr. Obama’s warnings and struck a deal before their abysmal approval ratings sank even lower", he fails to see the point.  Obama had absolutely no intention of striking a deal.  These cuts after all, amount to a paltry 2% of PROJECTED spending (which is always a MINIMUM of 3% higher than the previous year).  As the former White House Chief of Staff to the President, Rahm Emanuel used to always say, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste".  This issue literally presents the President with yet another opportunity to slam the Republicans and get more public support for his programs, his methods, his tax increases and so on.  So what was Obama's end game?  Blow this up to an issue, even though he knew it's a non issue, then blame the Republicans!

 

Think about it, Joe himself reported on how the Republicans wanted to give the President control over exactly what would be cut, yet he refused?  Not only did he refuse, he actually threatened to VETO any bill that gave him that kind of authority and responsibility!  Why would he do this?  Simple, the President doesn't want ANY cuts whatsoever, no matter how small and no matter how much waste is pointed out, but more importantly he wants to have another issue to beat up the Republicans over.  The plan is to hype up the damage to the economy over the next year so the Republicans lose in the Midterm elections.  Obama ends up with Nancy Pelosi in charge of Congress again and he can go back to pushing things like his Climate Change agenda and other tax increases.

How New Logic Sows Distrust

     We've all seen the reports, how it turns out that the supposedly 38 Billion in cuts is in all actuality only 352 Million in cuts.  When asked, they all shrug it off because as politicians, they've gotten used to using new math and new wording that is coached in political terms and quite frankly if used by any of us, would probably get us in a great deal of trouble.

     The way they see it is that they should have increased spending by an inflation adjusted 38 Billion, but instead cut the imaginary, never proposed, never passed into law, budget of 2011 by 352 Million.  To you and me, ordinary citizens, well that's a 352 Million dollar spending cut, to the politicians it's a 38 Billion dollar cut.  

     Once we find out the truth, does this lend more or less trust, not only in the Government, but also the Media itself that reports these "facts" without bothering to explain to the people what it really means.  Am I to believe that these reporters really don't know what's going on?  I'm a part time pundit and I know what's going on, these guys do this for a living!

     Now, Obama's new proposal is to "cut" 4 Trillion, not by cutting spending, but instead by cutting things like our ability to deduct the Mortgage Interest we're paying on our homes, (In other words, tax increases! - I'm sure this will do wonders for the Housing Market).  Even his plan of "cutting" 3 dollars for every 1 dollar in tax increases, doesn't quite add up, because the cuts are not really cuts, but instead the cuts are actually slowdowns in spending.  However, even with the slowdowns in spending, his budget calls for increases in Government spending from 25% of GDP today to well over 40% by 2050!  This represents another problem in the form of Hauser's Law, throughout the entire history of the IRS, the Federal Government has NEVER been able to collect more than 20.9% of GDP in Taxes!  Even when the top rates were 80%.  To top it off revenue usually averages under 19% of GDP.  Again, they don't know this stuff?    So they're lying to us, AGAIN.

     Even Ryan's Plan of "cutting" 6 Trillion, REALLY only cuts about 400 Billion the first year, by not implementing Obama Care and not renewing the failed Stimulus Plan.  Every year after that there's still growth, taking the budget from 3.5 Trillion to nearly 5 Trillion in 10 years, vs a Trillion dollars more in Obama's plan.  So where's the 6 Trillion in cuts?  It's the difference over 10 years between the Republicans Debt Ridden spending plan, vs Obama's INCREDIBLY debt ridden spending plan, NEITHER OF WHICH eliminates the deficit, though SUPPOSEDLY Ryan's plan will get us to a balanced budget in 10 years, but not before adding Trillions more to the National Debt.

     Is it any wonder that more and more Americans turn to the new Media like Glenn Beck, the Blaze, Rush and others?  How do we proceed with an "honest conversation" when the very words they use to describe what they're doing are in all actuality lies?  

     We need to demand HONESTY from our politicians and we need to stop the idiotic tendency that people have of saying that you "can't talk politics and religion" because we're afraid that someone will be offended.  What's the point of having the right to free speech if we can't and won't exercise it?  At the same time we need to grow up and stop getting angry at people because they disagree with us on one point or another.  We need to realise that everyone has a different point of view and no 2 people are EVER going to fully agree on everything.  Only once we start demanding HONEST and open dialogue with each other, will our politicians who are a reflection of us, will begin to have an honest and open dialogue with us in return.  In the meantime, when you hear that the "Republicans" want to starve people, and the "Democrats" want to bankrupt us, we need to do our own research and find out what the real truth is, because unfortunately, neither side will tell us the honest truth.

Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System

Chris Hedges' Columns

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Posted on Apr 10, 2011

Photo illustration by PZS based on an image by Lin Pernille Photography

By Chris Hedges

A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.

Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.

“Imagine,” said a public school teacher in New York City, who asked that I not use his name, “going to work each day knowing a great deal of what you are doing is fraudulent, knowing in no way are you preparing your students for life in an ever more brutal world, knowing that if you don’t continue along your scripted test prep course and indeed get better at it you will be out of a job. Up until very recently, the principal of a school was something like the conductor of an orchestra: a person who had deep experience and knowledge of the part and place of every member and every instrument. In the past 10 years we’ve had the emergence of both [Mayor] Mike Bloomberg’s Leadership Academy and Eli Broad’s Superintendents Academy, both created exclusively to produce instant principals and superintendents who model themselves after CEOs. How is this kind of thing even legal? How are such ‘academies’ accredited? What quality of leader needs a ‘leadership academy’? What kind of society would allow such people to run their children’s schools? The high-stakes tests may be worthless as pedagogy but they are a brilliant mechanism for undermining the school systems, instilling fear and creating a rationale for corporate takeover. There is something grotesque about the fact the education reform is being led not by educators but by financers and speculators and billionaires.”

Teachers, under assault from every direction, are fleeing the profession. Even before the “reform” blitzkrieg we were losing half of all teachers within five years after they started work—and these were people who spent years in school and many thousands of dollars to become teachers. How does the country expect to retain dignified, trained professionals under the hostility of current conditions? I suspect that the hedge fund managers behind our charter schools system—whose primary concern is certainly not with education—are delighted to replace real teachers with nonunionized, poorly trained instructors. To truly teach is to instill the values and knowledge which promote the common good and protect a society from the folly of historical amnesia. The utilitarian, corporate ideology embraced by the system of standardized tests and leadership academies has no time for the nuances and moral ambiguities inherent in a liberal arts education. Corporatism is about the cult of the self. It is about personal enrichment and profit as the sole aim of human existence. And those who do not conform are pushed aside. 

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“It is extremely dispiriting to realize that you are in effect lying to these kids by insinuating that this diet of corporate reading programs and standardized tests are preparing them for anything,” said this teacher, who feared he would suffer reprisals from school administrators if they knew he was speaking out. “It is even more dispiriting to know that your livelihood depends increasingly on maintaining this lie. You have to ask yourself why are hedge fund managers suddenly so interested in the education of the urban poor? The main purpose of the testing craze is not to grade the students but to grade the teacher.”

“I cannot say for certain—not with the certainty of a Bill Gates or a Mike Bloomberg who pontificate with utter certainty over a field in which they know absolutely nothing—but more and more I suspect that a major goal of the reform campaign is to make the work of a teacher so degrading and insulting that the dignified and the truly educated teachers will simply leave while they still retain a modicum of self-respect,” he added. “In less than a decade we been stripped of autonomy and are increasingly micromanaged. Students have been given the power to fire us by failing their tests. Teachers have been likened to pigs at a trough and blamed for the economic collapse of the United States. In New York, principals have been given every incentive, both financial and in terms of control, to replace experienced teachers with 22-year-old untenured rookies. They cost less. They know nothing. They are malleable and they are vulnerable to termination.”

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Click here to check out Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges’ new Truthdig book, “The World As It Is: Dispatches On the Myth of Human Progress.”

Keep up with Chris Hedges’ latest columns, interviews, tour dates and more atwww.truthdig.com/chris_hedges.

TAGS: chris hedges consciousness debate education education reform free thought history kant kids law media moralityphilosophy teachers

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Conservatives Against Marijuana Prohibition

Why Conservatives should insist on overturning cannabis prohibition in the U.S.:

Cut wasteful spending, restore respect for law enforcement, grow a sustainable economy without large government stimulus.

Personally, I'm not a Marijuana user, though I did experiment over 20 plus years ago in my youth. I do however enjoy a nice Margarita every once in a while and really see no difference between that and occassionally "lighting one up". The preposterous laws that we have banning cannibis, hemp and Marijuana based pharmacuticals is absolutely un-American, and was born out of a campaign of fear, not facts.

Here's a few highlights of the benefits of legalizing this herb.

1) Effective Law Enforcement: Ending cannabis prohibition will drastically reduce wasteful government spending and corruption of law enforcement officers. Half of the police budget is spent on invesitigating and prosecuting non-violent drug offenders.Law enforcement funds should be used to fight real crimes like murder, robbery, sexual abuse, fraud, assault, domestic abuse, driving while intoxicated, money laundering, cyber crimes, government corruption, vandalism, arson, conspiracy against rights, and medical and legal mal-practice. In todays socio-economic upheaval we need all the resources available to suppress gang violence, prevent home invasion and protect our citizens against real threats to their safety. With the lessening of profits available in the street drug business, that will certainly come about with the end of prohibition, our inner-city youth will have more incentive to get an education and seek a ligitimate career. No more kingpins.

2) Cut Government Spending: Cap on Taxes Ending proibition of cannabis will allow the introduction of the highly prolific hemp industy in New York State, which produces the essentials of life: food, clothing and shelter, and a multi-purpose medicine, thus giving non-profit charities the key ingredients for aiding the poor and disabled citizens, and eliminating nearly all of the need for state funding for welfare, medicaid, H.U.D., and Food Stamps.

3) Freedom of Enterprise The hemp industry was a standard part of the spectrum of agricultural and manufacuring business ventures in nearly every state in the country until it's prohibition was established deceptively by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Millions of Americans were in one way or another benefiting from hemp industries and were unaware that the arbitrary banning of marijuana was actually a ban on hemp. Had it been clearly explained to the public the law would likely have been opposed by an overwhelming majority. The cultivation of hemp never posed any serious threat to public safety, and in fact only threatened some newly invented pharmaceuticals.

4) Right to Bear Arms The unconstitutional prohibition of cannabis exposes free and upstanding citizens who grow the herb for personal use to felony charges which deprives them of their right to keep and bear arms and violates their right to privacy and sovereignty in the home. Let us not give the government licence to invade us.

5) Freedom of Education Choices Just as Conservatives value the right to pray in schools, the implication by police in D.A.R.E. programs, that the choice to use marijuana, as opposed to store-bought cold medicine, such as Nyquil is inherently self destructive, is not scientific and imposes a particular religious stance on our children, comparable to telling our children that God is not real. The role of public schools is to teach our children about science and generally accepted morals, not one religious stance or another. It is a family choice to teach kids our personal ideals.

6) Economic Prosperity Ending prohibition of cannabis will introduce a wide array of hemp products, grown and manufactured here in New York, including food, clothing, rope, canvas, building materials, fuel, and cosmetics. The production of so many valuable saleable items here at home will make way for many prosperous, self- sufficient economic networks. Our children won't have to wonder where they will work, because the job market will arguably be growing nearly as fast as the hemp fields. The lessening of the need for public welfare programs will free up government funds and open the opportunity to introduce sizeable tax-break incentives for new businesses. Allowing marijuana users to grow their own will allow them to save on healthcare and return their money to the mainstream economy. Let's put the criminal drug dealers out of business.

7) Medical Practice Accountability Without the restrictive control of the individual's free choice of medical treatments, the pharmaceutical companies and insurance providers will not be able to corrupt the medical establishments by encouraging certain prescriptions for the benefit of private corporate interests.

8) Freedom of Religion Many conservatives strongly believe that use of any mind-altering substance is morally damaging and should be kept from reaching our children. However, the current laws are a blatant invasion of people's rights to make their own moral judgements concerning what medicines to use, and whether or not to engage in euphoric practices. Prohibition is encouraging government to make arbitrary decisions on which freedoms to violate, depending on what party or political agenda is in control. The unavoidable truth is that not everyone's religion calls for the same guidelines, therefore we can not make state laws based on a certain group's religious convictions. That is a violation of the separation of church and state. We should follow the example of the founding fathers by opposing any infringement on rights and thereby protect our offspring from being subject to the future loss of their own freedoms. As long as your religion is not becoming an invasion of someone else's safety and well being, your religion is lawful and protected within the Constitution.

9) Right to Privacy If you allow the government to control what plants you grow on your own property even when you pose no real threat to neighbors or the community, then you are allowing government to violate your constitutional rights, committing treason against the country. If you let the government invade us because of regulations on plants, you are certainly encouraging the arbitrary invasion of whatever rights the acting regime might want to deprive us of in order to gain more control over our personal freedoms. You have a right to grow food, medicine and herbs on your own property. Prohibition of alcohol was destructive to the peace and tranquility of communities and so is prohibition of cannabis.

read more digg story

Do Your Part to Stop this MASSIVE Pork Bill

I saw this over at NoStimulus.com and thought it would be worthwhile to share it with my readers. Please make sure you click to sign the petition!!!

Fight Special Interests that Want to Take Your Money

FOX
News coverage of the first 69,000 of your petitions being delivered to the
United States Senate this past Friday [Left]. Senators Jim DeMint (SC), Jim
Inhofe (OK), Jeff Sessions (AL), Michael Enzi (WY) and David Vitter (LA)
receive the petitions on the steps of the Senate [Right]. We will be
delivering all the new petitions this week!

This Fight Is Not Over

We still have two chances to win in the House or Senate!

The Senate mustered 61 votes to squeak through the Collins/Nelson
amendment, better known as the “compromise” stimulus plan.

If you listen to the mainstream media, this means the fight is over, Nancy
Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama win, and it’s time to move on. Not so
fast!

The bill will go to a conference committee to work out differences between
the House and Senate versions. The conference committee will be a brand-new
feeding frenzy of wasteful pork projects.

Whatever comes out of conference committee will be another very tough vote
in both the House and Senate.

If we keep the pressure on, we can win!

What Does the So-Called “Stimulus Package” Mean For You?

It means you pay.

You pay for more bailouts, more giveaways, more wasteful spending...and
your children and grandchildren pay for trillions of dollars of debt.

But you can fight back right now. By signing the
petition, you can join
the thousands of Americans who are saying NO!

NO to more taxpayer-funded bailouts and
giveaways to special interests!

NO to using economic hardship as an
excuse for Big Government power grabs!

NO to heaving trillions of dollars in
new debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren!

NO to this no-stimulus scam!

Follow the links on the right to contact your elected officials, learn how
you can tell your friends and family why this new scheme will hurt taxpayers,
and invest in the movement that is fighting back!

FOX
News coverage of the first 69,000 of your petitions being delivered to the
United States Senate this past Friday [Left]. Senators Jim DeMint (SC), Jim
Inhofe (OK), Jeff Sessions (AL), Michael Enzi (WY) and David Vitter (LA)
receive the petitions on the steps of the Senate [Right]. We will be
delivering all the new petitions this week!

This Fight Is Not Over

We still have two chances to win in the House or Senate!

The Senate mustered 61 votes to squeak through the Collins/Nelson
amendment, better known as the compromise stimulus plan.

If you listen to the mainstream media, this means the fight is over, Nancy
Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama win, and its time to move on. Not so
fast!

The bill will go to a conference committee to work out differences between
the House and Senate versions. The conference committee will be a brand-new
feeding frenzy of wasteful pork projects.

Whatever comes out of conference committee will be another very tough vote
in both the House and Senate.

If we keep the pressure on, we can win!

What Does the So-Called Stimulus Package Mean For You?

It means you pay.

You pay for more bailouts, more giveaways, more wasteful spending...and
your children and grandchildren pay for trillions of dollars of debt.

But you can fight back right now. By signing the
petition, you can join
the thousands of Americans who are saying NO!

NO to more taxpayer-funded bailouts and
giveaways to special interests!

NO to using economic hardship as an
excuse for Big Government power grabs!

NO to heaving trillions of dollars in
new debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren!

NO to this no-stimulus scam!

Follow the links to contact your elected officials, learn how
you can tell your friends and family why this new scheme will hurt taxpayers,
and invest in the movement that is fighting back!

Does the U.S. Government Need More Taxes?

To hear Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama speak, you would think that the Federal Government is in Dire Straights. “The Rich need to pay their fair share” and “we need to invest Oil Profits”. Last year the federal government spent almost 2.8 Trillion Dollars. That figure is a just over a 13 fold increase since 1970. What you don’t hear, is that the government has also had an almost 13 fold increase in recipients as well. Think about this for a moment, in that same time span, the median household income in the U.S. has grown at only half that rate, and while the deficit has definitely gone up, to the tune over 300 Billion a year, it’s still relatively small compared to total inflows.

The reason the Government has been able to get away with this is simple, they utilize politics of class warfare and envy. While the bottom 50% of income earners share of taxes has gone down to a historic low of less than 4% of all personal taxes collected, the wealthy in this country, or at least those in the top 50% of income earners are paying over 96% of all personal income taxes collected, with the top 1% of income earners paying almost 40% of all personal income taxes collected. To top it off, Corporate taxes in the U.S. are at an all time high of 35 to 39%, the 3rd highest in the industrialized world. Only Japan and Germany are higher, and both of those companies have record numbers of factories moving overseas, so the next time people talk about NAFTA and China taking away jobs, we here in the U.S. make it very difficult for companies to make money, and then once they do make money, they have to hand over a third of it to the government. They then wonder why the companies want to move offshore? Most other countries throughout the world tax their corporations at anywhere from 12 to 25%! Ever since Ireland had adopted a low corporate tax of just 12.5%, it has seen an economic boom that has powered it's economy twice as fast as other European nations. Obviously, going the route that Clinton and Obama are espousing would cause more companies to take Intel and Dell's lead and move more operations to Ireland and other low corporate tax nations.

The chart below shows the overall budget between 1970 to 2007, 75&76 are a bit skewed because of accounting changes, but has you can clearly see the amount of cash being collected by the government is at an all time high. According to Pig Book, 17.2 Billion of the deficit spending, was attributed to Pork Barrel spending alone, both the Senate and theHouse are guilty of indulging their constituents.

On Nov. 7^th, 2006 voters across the country signaled their disgust for the system and the status quo with a mandate for the Democrats to clean house. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that they’re listening. Spending between 2006 and 2007 is up by a 4%, adjusted to inflation a 1% increase, but no cuts. Considering the fact that the deficit is only 13% of the budget, a simply slowing spending to say, half of inflation coupled with eliminating Pork Barrel spending would have brought the deficit down by 8%, a few years like that and the entire deficit could be wiped out, without too much pain. The worst part is that we blew a golden opportunity between 2004 and 2007, while the economy was booming, receipts increased by an average of 11% a year, this would have been a perfect opportunity to balance the budget, but instead, spending each year, exceeded receipts. Bush, once again offered more of the same, instead of leadership on this issue, when he issues his proposed budget of 3.1 Trillion Dollars, that had 2.9 Trillion in spending.