Lessons Our Children Learned From the Great Budget Debate of 2011

Posted by on Aug 11, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments

American Exceptionalism is built on optimism about free enterprise, traditional families, and Judeo-Christian values!  People who watched or otherwise kept abreast of the political debate over the US economic status and budget, learned a great amount of practical knowledge about the way the American media, political, and economic systems function.  The debates offered a good civics lesson for children. For example, they learned:

  1. America has two major political parties: Democrats and Republicans, as well as Independents;
  2. The U.S. Congress consists of the House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans since 2010, led by the Speaker of the House, John Boehner (Republican); and the Senate, controlled by Democrats since 2008, led by Harry Reid (Democrat) and chaired by the US Vice-President, Joe Biden (Democrat);
  3. Both Houses of Congress have leaders known as Majority and Minority leaders…the political party that has the most members selects the Majority Leader, while the minority party elects a Minority Leader.  These persons usually speak on behalf of each party at press conferences and represent their particular political parties at conferences with other Congressmen and the U.S. President;
  4. Both Houses of Congress must approve legislation before it is signed into law by the US President;
  5. The President (currently Democrat Barak Obama) has veto power if he does not approve of a legislative bill passed by Congress;
  6. Budget legislation must be initiated and passed by the US House of Representatives, and then be approved by the Senate and President;
  7. The President usually relies on his Secretary of the Treasury to provide accurate information on budgetary issues;
  8. Disagreements over Congressional budgetary items are resolved by the political party that has the most influence or by a “compromise” process: the practice by which each party surrenders certain preferred legislative components in order to present to the President a bill to be signed into law;
  9. A great amount of pressure is put on Congress and the President by political activists, called lobbyists, and by media spokespersons via television, radio, internet, or print.
  10.  Contemporary elected officials operate from the perspective of perceived political benefits of proposed legislation, while America’s Founding Fathers drafted the Declaration of Independence based on moral principles and prospects of freedom from tyranny imposed by the English King (George) and Parliament;
  11. The US Treasury currently operates its national budget based on money (currency and Treasury Notes) borrowed from China, Japan, Germany, and other countries, including Islamic nations;
  12. The US debt is in excess of $14 trillion…an amount that exceeds the current ability of US citizens to pay back in their entire life time (based on current revenue);
  13. Debts are paid as money (called revenue) is collected in the form of income taxes on employee wages and sales of products and services by businesses (whose owners are called entrepreneurs, capitalists, investors, and employers);
  14. The American economy consists of three basic classes of people: lower, middle, and upper;
  15. The lower class consists of an estimated 47 million people, most of which receive some type of government financial assistance (welfare), and who pay little or no Federal income taxes;
  16. The middle and upper classes and business corporations pay most of the federal income taxes collected by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which Congress decides how to spend on such items as military, welfare, social security, medicare, education, justice, transportation, and other government agencies;
  17. Congress, over the past four decades,  has spent more money than was collected from taxpayers, family-owned businesses, and industrial corporations; thus has borrowed 14 trillion dollars from foreign nations, thus creating need for the Great Budget Debate;
  18. The borrowed money is called national debt;
  19. The American economy is operating as a debtor nation because Congress borrowed more money than was produced by revenue collected from US taxpayers, and spent the money based on an ideology known as Progressive Socialism (welfare state);
  20. The great debate over the budget was initiated by voters affiliated with The Tea Party—a cohort of voters who believe that the US economy should operate with a balanced budget based on revenue generated within the USA by people who work, while reducing dependency on the Federal government to support the national economy with high taxes;
  21. Tea Party affiliates exercise a great amount of influence in Congress, and will likely hold the President, Representatives, and Senators accountable for the Great Budget Debate of 2011.