Manifesto 2.0

1. In terms of the government and its rights to tax, this is the way it ought be...   Unfortunately, taxes are an inevitable part of our lives. They are necessary to pay for schools, police, roads, military, etc. The catch is that the government takes a lot of the money that it receives and spends it on unnecessary expenses. The government no doubt has the right to tax people on what will benefit the nation as a whole, but when money is spent on things like the Yale duck science experiment or a not so historical museum, it raises concern for those working so hard to earn their money, only to have it taken away to pay for things that will not be useful to them presently or in the future. "If you want to get paid for doing something stupid, just turn to the U.S. government.  The U.S. government is paying researchers to play video games, it is paying researchers to study the effects of cocaine on Japanese quail" (The American Dream). In my opinion, the government ought to only collect taxes based on what the people absolutely need. This way taxes would be much lower and individuals could donate substantially more money to charities that could fund what is considered 'unnecessary'. In conclusion, the government, in my opinion, should step back in its role of taxing so heavily and begin to only take what is absolutely needed. The rest of the funding should come out of the pockets of those willing and motivated to fund it.

2. Personally, I am supportive of the way in which the government receives its revenue. Although, I do not support the fact that it has the power to continuously raise taxes with few restrictions or boundaries. Forty six percent of the revenue comes directly from individual income, and thirty five from social security and insurance, thus placing the majority of the burden on the people themselves. Once again, while I do believe in this taxing method and that it can be justified, I also think that there should be some definite restrictions as to high the taxes can be raised, as the people are directly affected by this. In my opinion, once again if taxes were to be lowered then businesses would be able to hire more employees and the government could spread its taxation out over a larger number of people rather than just simply raising the taxes for a smaller amount of workers. In conclusion, I support the fact that the government places a large amount of the tax burden on the people because we are the one's making the money and benefiting (most of the time) from how the government spends it, but the system does have flaws and to fix these, I suggest that taxes be lowered to expand the taxing pool.

3. I support the ways in which our government spends its money in terms of defense, discretionary, and other mandatory expenses. I do not support the system in terms of net interest, medicare & medicaid or social security. America plays a huge role on the world stage because of the ways in which we are able to financially assert ourselves on the battlefield. The government doesn't do a lot of things extremely well, but its spending towards the military is an exception. Discretionary spending is definitely necessary because of all of the random expenses that are required to keep our government functioning such as; security cars, white house toilet paper, etc. (hahaha) As I mentioned earlier almost half of the spending the government does is based on social security and medicare & medicaid. I am aware that these to programs are necessary and cannot be abolished, but in my opinion they should be made private. The government as of right now is planning on increasing these two programs which would also increase taxes, so why not just make them private and let the people deal with their own savings? It takes a government to make decisions in terms of the military, but a regular everyday person can deal with their own money.

4. In the Concords Coalition Federal Budget Challenge I made cuts on the arts, AMTRAK and I also made the decision to limit TRICARE health insurance for military retirees and their benefits. Each of these areas I feel could be cut down to help the economy without much of a negative affect. For instance, the arts could be funded through private charities as could the AMTRAK. If people want something bad enough they can pay for it themselves. In terms of the military benefits, I am very aware that these families deserve to be compensated, but in my opinion it may be a bit much to pay for the government to pay for entire families health insurance. People in the military make money while in there and in addition do not have college debt as it is paid for by the government. In my opinion it would not be bad to have those serving in the military pay for their health insurance. Lastly, I believe that our country could be saved from our debt crises if were to cut down substantially on the amount of money spent helping out other countries. It does not make sense to be pouring money in to these other struggling countries when we are struggling on our own! America should work on getting back on its own two feet for a while and then eventually continue to help others in need.

 
5. To represent the last point I made in my solution to solving the long term debt of this nation, I chose to post an airplane mask. As I said earlier, America should first be focusing on bettering itself before we assist other countries. This way, our country can be strong and better able to serve others. This being said, dealing with airplane mask is very closely related in that in the case of an emergency, an adult would need to always put their mask on first so that they are stable and able to help another passenger younger than them. America in this case is the older passenger who must first focus on themselves, and then once they are stable, help those in need.


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