From the Right
By Alex Fries
Everyday, thousands of college students study hard for the promise of a job and a better future. While these students toil it seems that liberal politicians in Washington fail to realize the harm they are doing to the hopes and dreams of future generations. Over the tenure of the “Hope and Change” President Barack Obama, not only has the national debt increased by nearly $8 trillion, but along with it the financial burden being placed on the future generation. Meanwhile, the hope for a balanced budget and deficit reduction is dwindling.
It is extremely concerning to observe the “tax and spend” philosophy that has made its round amongst liberal politicians and especially in the White House. The President has called for more than a $1.5 trillion tax increase over the coming decade. These taxes would be placed on the wealthy and overseas business investments to fund higher domestic and military spending, and hopefully on the American infrastructure and education. The benefits of a tax hike not only on domestic businesses but also their assets overseas is deeply concerning, and no domestic benefit can be a foreseen result.
In his speech President Obama stated that it is time to “replace mindless austerity with smart investments that strengthen America.” But will his proposed budget really do this?  Will it strengthen America?  I am afraid the answer becomes clear when one realizes that the budget is based on increasing taxes and not on reducing the deficit. In fact, in the next 10 years the budget will not only not be balanced and not even reduced, but the deficit will increase in the next 10 years from today’s approximately $470 billion to $687 billion by 2025.  As Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, called it, “Another top-down, backward-looking document that caters to powerful political bosses on the left and never balances — ever.”
Something our liberal federal officials seemingly don’t understand is that the problem is not the lack of taxation across the board. It is the repeatedly proven unnecessary spending by the government and government agencies. It is simply impossible to tax oneself into wealth or as Sir Winston Churchill said, “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
So, if the government has no hopes of balancing the budget and they hope to strengthen America by funding this spending through raising taxes, who is going to bear the burden of these measures? Future generations! We and our future children will! We are going to be the well educated and “wealthy” people who will pay.
I, for one, say that this is not a responsible solution to America’s problems. Spending without budget reduction, however it is funded, is not going to build a strong foundation for the America of our generation. No, it is going to create for us a “crippled” America with massive debt, essentially non existent domestic businesses, the result of which will be the continuous increase of unemployment and even less hope of prosperity for the lower and middle class.
More than 20 years ago, President Reagan realized what the problem was: “We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.”
How is it that for the past 15 to 20 years we still haven’t realized the obvious? Insufficient taxation isn’t the problem, federal spending is. Unless we as a nation finally wake up and realize that our government must start to spend responsibly we do not have the hope of growing up, working in, and participating in a thriving country.