Mr. Obama is asking each of us how a $2,000 increase in taxes would impact us. Such an increase would occur for an average middle class family if the current tax structure reverts to pre-2004 law on January 1, 2013 without new changes agreed to by Congress and Mr. Obama.
Here is my offering.
Dear Mr. Obama,
To date you have ignored our unsustainable entitlement liabilities, now estimated in excess of 85 trillion dollars. You have ignored our current $16 trillion Federal debt. You have proposed budgets with ongoing annual Federal deficits of $1 trillion.
The most responsible thing to do now is to retain the current tax structure while restructuring medicare and social security to be sustainable within the current tax structure, and so that each generation pays their own way (each generation gets what they can afford based on their productivity, and the value of their work).
Understanding that political reality has nothing to do with what is most responsible, I offer an alternative. Every American should contribute to the cost of real solutions.
Everyone of us bears responsibility for our debt, deficits, and unsustainable entitlement liabilities. Therefore, let every one of us help fix the problem through additional taxation by allowing the current tax structure to revert to pre-2004 rules, provided that this decision MUST BE coupled with the restructuring of our entitlement liabilities proposed above, where medicare and social security become financially sustainable and where each generation pays their own way. I will happily pay my share of the cost of a real and lasting solution.
The extra tax revenue will help those currently receiving and anticipating medicare and social security benefits while financing the restructuring to sustain these social programs for our children and grandchildren.
Unambiguous reforms making medicare and social security sustainable will motivate investment and greatly increase world wide confidence in the future of the United States. These consequences will create opportunity for all, bringing down unemployment and thereby reducing unemployment payments, food stamps, and other subsidies related to unemployment.
Certainly, a man as compassionate as you will see the long term wisdom of actually solving our fundamental problems. Certainly, you will want to be remembered for contributing leadership to a real solution. Certainly, a leader would rather fix the real problems than pander to subsets of Americans for political gain.
Regards, Pete Weldon
americanstance.org