The Romney VP Choice: Paul Ryan

I just saw Chris Matthews on MSNBC, frothing, as he usually does, about Ryan's budget proposals. About how his proposal will cause a tax increase for the middle class... for everyone watching his program right now, just so that the richest Americans (including MANY lefties who steadfastly refuse to pay more taxes than they are currently required to pay) can get a 20% tax cut.

I am not rich, but I sure pay "my fair share" of taxes. As little as I clear each year in my business (we are supposed to make a profit aren't we?), I always cringe to find out how much I will have to come up with to make sure I have paid enough. Tax refunds? Hah!

As I have stated in a previous blog post, if the government confiscated every last penny of taxable income from the richest 1%, it would make a dent in the annual deficit but wouldn't allow for a surplus. Armed with this knowledge, even a fourth grader could figure out that by making our currently progressive tax rates more "progressive", it will never, ever, allow us to decimate the deficit.

As much as we like to talk about government waste and sloth (and boy is there a lot of both), the real money is in Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, defense spending and debt service and entitlements. That covers about 3/4 of annual federal expenditures. You could actually do away with everything that was not in that list and we couldn't balance our budget. So, that same fourth grader would surmise that cuts need to come from entitlements or the military.

Sure, we could all pay a bit more and I think the rich wouldn't mind it so much if everyone had to chip in, but seeing 50% of our population paying $0 federal income taxes and with the prospect of federal income taxes going up, up, up, they aren't going to want to volunteer to get gored.

Since the fourth graders can figure this out, but our elected officials cannot (at least the ones laughing at Congressman Ryan's proposals), I will spell out the answer in three letters: J O B S (with apologies to Joe Biden for stealing his material.)

No businessperson that I know has any confidence that the situation is going to get better, so no one is going out on a limb to create jobs. If the Republicans could win both Houses and the Presidency and do NOTHING but repeal Obamacare and fix our health insurance issues, we would probably see a boom in our economy. 

Like Napoleon Hill stated in Think and Grow Rich, you don't become sustainably rich unless you produce a value greater than what you receive. The Wall Street types that play with money like it was a huge board game are what I feel are harming our economy and giving rich guys a bad rap. People like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, sports figures and entertainers, etc. who make huge bank are providing value. Good for them. This is what we should all aspire to. Leave these guys alone to create value that spawns other value. 

If you want to go after the investment bankers and money manipulators, go for it.

As for Paul Ryan, congratulations. Even though he will have no power to put his plan in effect, he understands how it all goes together and Romney has a proven record of successful workouts. This is what we need to get started again.

So, let's get started.