My December 5th post examined the very ominous warning from the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) that America had to get its fiscal house in order quickly or it faced an “ugly and punitive” solution which would be imposed on the USA by the rest of the world. That post cited truly remarkable criticism of the Federal Reserve Board and the US government’s fiscal profligacy that appeared in such mainstream media outlets as the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News. If you read the link that was included in my December 5th post that contained the entire CFR warning to the USA’s leaders, you can see it read like an ultimatum to “shape up or face the consequences.”
Two things have happened since I wrote that post which are worthy of a follow-up post on this same subject. The first link below contains a column by columnist Kathleen Parker, which proclaims the warnings in the same CFR article I cited three days ago. Ms. Parker also detailed the CFR’s urgent warning about the need for America to get its fiscal house in order or face an “ugly and punitive” solution to be imposed by world markets. Her column looked like a secular version of my December 5th post at this website.
So, are American leaders waking up and smelling the coffee and taking actions to at least start addressing the need to reduce the federal deficit? No way. They just decided to greatly increase the federal deficits over the next decade. The second link describes details about the compromise deal reached between President Obama and the newly-resurgent Republicans in Congress over the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. The article gives specific details, but the main fact to focus on is that this deal not only extends the Bush-era tax cuts, it adds new tax cuts for the rich which will make the deficit even worse! The article states that the “deal” will increase the federal debt by “$3.7 trillion over ten years.” This brazen slap-in-the-face to foreign markets and governments confirms that the US government can no more overcome its debt addiction than a meth addict can overcome his/her addiction without strong intervention from outside sources. Given that the CFR has warned that “ugly and punitive” solutions will be imposed by the world community if the USA doesn’t shape up fiscally, the tax deal done by Obama and the Congressional Republicans confirms that the only way to get America’s fiscal house in order is for a “ugly and punitive” solution to be imposed by the world community.
Don’t get me wrong. Some of the Bush-era tax cuts for the lower-and middle-income groups needed to be extended. But why did the Congressional Republicans go to the mat to protect the historically low tax rates for the rich? The “deal” prevented the top tax rate from going to 39.6% if I recall correctly. Given the size of the national debt, even that is an historically low top tax rate for the wealthy. The third link below reveals that in the Nixon era, the top tax rate was 70% and the rate was 90% under the Eisenhower administrations (both GOP presidencies). It was still 50% in the Reagan administration! Given our desperate federal debt levels, it seems a no-brainer that the top rate for the rich ought to go back to at least 70%.
Was it really necessary to extend the mortgage interest deduction for the super-rich who deduct their interest payments on multiple homes with very high prices? Would it have been so hard to limit the mortgage interest deduction to only one home per family and limit the mortgage deduction to homes costing $250,000 or less? Why not remove the cap on the portion of income subject to FICA taxes (I heard this option discussed on CNBC-TV)? The cap is a scam which shields the rich from having to pay our second income tax which mostly hits the lower and middle income classes. Ordinary federal income taxes go into the government’s general fund to fund all areas of government spending. Guess where FICA revenues go? They go to the same general fund to pay for all government expenses. So we, in effect have two federal income tax programs. However, the rich are shielded from having to pay very much on the FICA “income tax” because most of the income of the rich is not subject to the FICA “income tax.”
Perhaps there would be a justification for giving “the rich” such incredible income tax breaks if they really were “creating jobs in America.” However, I’m afraid the continuing high unemployment figures show that claim is a canard. It would seem the only places that “the rich” are creating new jobs are in Chinese factories and in call-centers in India.
It would appear that those of us who rejoiced when the GOP won the recent elections have been had (at least at the Congressional level). The GOP leaders teamed up with Obama to give even more sweet tax-deals to the rich than they previously had! Matthew 7:20 says “by their fruits you shall know them.” Pay no attention to what they say. The “fruits” of Obama and the GOP leadership show that they are completely in the hip pockets of “the rich;” the Congressional Democrats seem not to be “in the loop” anymore. If this is any indication of the lack of action that Obama and the GOP will take concerning our runaway national debt in the next session of Congress, the Tea Party may be running its own set of candidates for President and Congress in 2012. If that happens, the GOP will rue the votes that they cast to vastly increase the deficit soon after an election where the electorate told them to reduce the deficits.
However, we may not have to wait until 2012 for retribution to hit the reckless ruling elites in Washington, DC and New York. The CFR (which conspiracy theorists say speak for the Bilderbergers and perhaps a small group of “Wise Men” above the Bilderbergers) has warned American leaders to shape up their fiscal practices or face “ugly and punitive” solutions imposed by the rest of the world upon the USA. The Obama-Congressional tax deal essentially just told the rest of the world to “go stick it”—that the American leaders intend to bloat the deficits to a level far greater than anything seen to date. Personally, I think the CFR’s warning was both timely and serious. How many times do serious people in positions of power and influence have to warn that our spending practices are “unsustainable?” America’s fiscal foundations are nearing a point of collapse…and actions show that America’s leaders couldn’t care less. Because the US dollar is the world reserve currency, the rest of the world has to care about what happens here. I’ll bet in secret rooms in China, Russia, Europe, India, Brazil, the Arab oil nations, etc., the “ugly and punitive” solution to America’s out-of-control debt crisis is already being planned. The CFR has strongly hinted that such action is already being planned.
I hope you are preparing for the global fiscal crisis which is coming. Have you begun to implement a personal/family preparation plan to tide you over when the crisis hits? Reasonable precautions are detailed in my article, Should Christians Prepare for Future Hard Times? That article cites the US government’s own advise on how to prepare for natural disasters such as hurricanes when normal essential services will not be available for days. We face a financial hurricane in the future which could paralyze our entire nation. Revelation 17-18 warns us that the entire global financial/monetary system will collapse at some point. If you won’t listen to the secular sources (the CFR, media outlets and columnists) warning about “ugly and punitive” solutions being imposed on the USA to solve its debt crisis, then I hope that you will at least take God’s warning in Revelation 17-18 seriously.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-kathleen-parker-120510-20101206,0,6514346.column
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/06/1960775/obama-gop-reach-deal-to-extend.html
http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977623449
