A Brief Thought On the Deficit

Dearest listeners. Today the American government is faced with a colossal deficit of approximately 13 trillion dollars. Economists fear that we are at the tipping point at which the revenue earned by the government will not be able to even pay off the interest on the innumerable loans the government has taken out over the course of its 234-year lifespan.

But we are faced with a dilemma. Politicians being politicians, they refuse to raise taxes, citing that the problem does not come from the amount of revenue the government earns from its annual harvests in April. To begin with, though, the tax code is fraught with loopholes and complications. It needs to be cleaned in more ways than one. I do believe that the process of raising taxes as one's wealth rises is worthless. It makes it not as profitable to raise one's social status. A major tenet of American culture is that anyone can make it anywhere. Raising your taxes as you earn more is counter to this principle. Therefore, this should be removed from the tax code, instead replacing it with a flat tax of, for example, 30%. Its both fair and simple.

However, let us return to the fact that taxes apparently shouldn't be raised under any circumstances, no matter what. It's a political no-no, and that's idiotic. Taxes ebb and flow with the state of the country's deficit, and they cannot just be lowered and lowered and lowered. We have come across a plain example of the Machiavellian paradox.

Niccoló Machiavelli, an Italian humanist philosopher of the Renaissance, developed many theories of governance in his writings. In one of these, he states that a ruler should not always simply appease the masses, but do what is best for the state. If a ruler always pleases his people, when it comes time to make changes that will harm each person individually, but benefit the state as a whole, they will be incredibly resistant. This is what is occurring in not only the United States, but also other nations as they react to their deficits and aging populations. The populace is screaming against the reforms because they will take away government handouts  (or in the United State's case, low taxes) that they have considered essential rights. It's time for everyone to man up, tighten their belts, and prepare to not be political fools. The United Kingdom has done this successfully. We can too.

Nuclear Power

Hello dear listeners. I have just read that the New START Treaty, a vital treaty to reduce nuclear arms, is due for vote in the next few weeks. The Republican party, which had mostly opposed the treaty, has seen the views of its electorate, and decided to split. The more conservative Republicans continue to oppose the treaty, citing that it would lower America's ability to respond to threats and lower the danger of Mutually Assured Destruction. These are invalid points. We (we meaning the entire global community) currently have enough nuclear arms to annihilate every country on the planet three times over. The decreasing of our supplies of nuclear weapons from roughly 2,200 to 1,500 is a task for the safety of the global community. I certainly don't want to be killed in World War III. Because, as Einstein said, "I don't know how World War III will be fought, but I know how the Fourth World War will be: rocks!"

Now the question is how to correctly utilize the stocks of enriched uranium and plutonium that each nuclear weapon contains. I do not know if this is on the table, but I think that this fissile material should be used to fuel a new era in the construction of nuclear power plants. We can derive great stores of clean energy, provide plenty of jobs, and solve our nuclear crisis by simply utilizing the fuel for a better use. If this action is not taken, this hazardous material will probably end up in a military storage facility, the vast stores of energy it contains useless. That is not the path I would like to take.

Let's take out three birds with one stone. Let's switch to nuclear power.

An Update on Current Affairs

Hello to my four current followers. In the past few months a myriad of different events have occured, mostly negative. The world has become a much rockier place, and I am frightened for several reasons.

To start, the complete reversal of the United States House of Representatives to the Republican Party. I am not so much scared of the political ideas they will implement, as on some I agree with them, but I am mortified by the possibilty of the repeal of many environmental standards.

I think that an explanation of my name is in order as of now, as it helps explain why I feel so strongly liberal about environmental issues. Nudibranchs are a specific family of sea slugs in the order Ophistobranchia. The name, translated from its roots, means naked gills or naked lungs. Their gills, unlike most marine gastropods, are outside of their bodies in protrusions called cerata. Because of their vulnerability, they ingest poisonous sponges, cnidarians, and other toxic marine life. They are my personal favorite creature.

However, the oceans are overtaxed and being destroyed by pollution. All animals, not just nudibranchs, are vulnerable. With thousands, if not millions, of scientific papers related to the destruction of the environment, how can the Republicans possibly deny any more that we need to change our habits?

The scientific community is raging at the views of the Republican party. While we will never prove that humans are directly causing global warming, we are certainly increasing the effect, they argue. For example: it is a well known fact that the combustion of fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide and water, along with other chemicals. Modern technology does help us remove some of the more harmful ones. However, we also know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. So if about 200,000,000 cars are producing carbon dioxide almost every day, how is it disputable that humans are not affecting, if not directly causing, climate change?

There is further proof that because of the effects of the Industrial Revolution, the number of droughts, flash floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters related to climate change have been increased exponentially. It is unreasonable, if not just crazy, to argue that we, as the only form of sapient life on Earth, should not try to stop this.

However, the Republicans argue that implementing environmental laws will cost the nation jobs. While most likely, and unfortunately, this is true, that is increasing the threat of  a disaster of global proportions. The longer we wait to stop climate change, the more we are going to have to do to either A. prevent life loss, or B. reverse the effects. We have to act now. Not ten years from now, not twenty years from now. Now. Otherwise, the effects will be too great to stop.

As I have said in a previous post, a trillion or two is worth preventing the end of the world.

Moving to other affairs, we have the budget defficit, which Congress is failing at as usual. The solution to this problem is going to have to involve a raise in taxes for everyone, not just the "rich."

Note that I put quotes around the word rich. That is on purpose. The definition of rich seems to be, for the average American, millionaires and billionaires. Unfortunately, the tax bracket including millionaires and billionaires also includes people who just became successful, i.e. small business owners. We need to separate the succesful from the wealthy before we start raising taxes on the "rich." It's unfair to group people that live completely different lives into the same group. Confusing millionaires with small business owners is just as
bad as equating the middle-class with the lower-class.

However, I have to agree with Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernankey that now really isn't the time to raise taxes to cover the deficit. However, we do need to stop "kicking the can down the road." So maybe it is time to deal with the monster in the closet of the deficit. But to prevent damge to the enconomy, taxes should niether be raised nor lowered. Instead, the code should be cleaned up.

I don't remember which Senator said this, but in a speech to the Detroit Economic Conference, a Republican Senator talked about how the tax code works in short. It was staggering. The number of things a person can be taxed on is appalling, and the number of loopholes in the law is surely inumerable. Before we start raising, lowering, or changing any part of the numeral parts of the tax code, we should make it effectively and fairly make revenue.

I will not talk about Don't Ask, Don't Tell in length, as I believe it's unimportant. All I think is that it should be changed to Don't Ask, Don't Care.

Thank you for listening. Tell your friends, please, and if you listen but haven't subscribed, please do. I'd like to know you care.