{"id":12933,"date":"2012-12-15T10:11:22","date_gmt":"2012-12-15T15:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=12933"},"modified":"2012-12-15T10:11:22","modified_gmt":"2012-12-15T15:11:22","slug":"time-for-common-sense-on-both-sides-of-cliff-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=12933","title":{"rendered":"Time for common sense on both sides of cliff talk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><em><strong><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Both sides seem more focused on talking points than facts<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>By Mike McGann<\/strong>, <span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><em>Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/UTMikeColLogo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-12939\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" title=\"UTMikeColLogo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/UTMikeColLogo-250x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"175\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/UTMikeColLogo-250x300.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/UTMikeColLogo-83x100.jpg 83w, https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/UTMikeColLogo.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 175px) 100vw, 175px\" \/><\/a>Before, we get started here, my thoughts and prayers to the people of Newtown, Conn. It is a community so much like so many parts of Chester County, it is impossible not to feel both sympathy and horror.<\/p>\n<p>As a parent, it chills the blood. I\u2019m not sure there was anything different that could have been done by school officials \u2014 or that we need to see any massive changes in how we run our schools. I pray somewhere, somehow, some good ultimately comes of this \u2014 but it is very difficult to see how, right now.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, there just are no words\u2026so we send our love and prayers to everyone hurting this morning.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">* * *<\/p>\n<p>Moving on to more mundane topics such as our looming \u201cFiscal cliff,\u201d which, and I never thought this possible, is a relief to focus on for a few minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, though, we have a problem here.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats blame the Republicans, Republicans blame the Democrats and on it goes. But at the end of the day, it struck me as I was covering a protest the other day in East Marlborough at U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts&#8217; office, that, really we \u2014 you and I \u2014 are to blame.<\/p>\n<p>We as voters haven\u2019t taken the time to really look at the numbers and decide what the priorities should be, instead falling back on whatever four-second sound bite sounds about right to us, whether its left or right. And then we reenforce that by only getting our news from sources that agree with that one world view.<\/p>\n<p>And those worldviews have been increasingly hijacked by extreme right and left voices \u2014 leaving us with, approximately, the choice of supporting Fidel Castro\u2019s Workers Paradise or William McKinley&#8217;s Corporatist America, when frankly, both stink.<\/p>\n<p>And so here we are, up to our hips in a mess, stuck with a stagnant economy and leadership in Washington so spooked to do anything because it might not pass a \u201cpurity test\u201d that nothing gets done.<\/p>\n<p>Both parties need to start asking the questions publicly that they\u2019re starting to ask privately. And we need to let them.<\/p>\n<p>For Republicans, isn\u2019t it time to toss Grover Nordquist overboard? Where\u2019s your allegiance? America or Nordquist\u2019s blatant power grab and his ego? Here\u2019s an awful fact: as Americans we\u2019re not overtaxed. The combined tax burden \u2014 that\u2019s local, state and federal \u2014 on citizens is lower now than at any time since 1960.<\/p>\n<p>And where\u2019s the economy? Trashed.<\/p>\n<p>I find it a mix of sad, pathetic and hilarious when I read the Tea Party missives in my in-box that cite President Calvin Coolidge as their muse and hero of economics (for those of you keeping score at home, his brilliant economic policies caused The Great Depression). That\u2019s a bit like citing Michael Vick as a paragon of pet care.<\/p>\n<p>Cutting taxes doesn\u2019t stimulate the economy unless we\u2019re overtaxed. We\u2019re not. There\u2019s a sweet spot \u2014 which despite the naysayers claims in 1993 \u2014 was set during the Clinton Administration. Clinton raised taxes (which passed by a single vote, and ended any number of Congressional careers) and\u2026.wait for it\u2026.the economy boomed.<\/p>\n<p>George W. Bush was elected and cut taxes and&#8230;wait for it&#8230;the economy stalled and then crashed in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>These are facts and it\u2019s high time someone pointed them out.<\/p>\n<p>But the Democrats, my soon to be former party (I\u2019ve discovered I\u2019m a Whig) aren\u2019t off the hook.<\/p>\n<p>While we may not have a tax problem, we do clearly have a spending problem. When we bring in $2.4 trillion and spend $3.7 trillion, it\u2019s an issue and one tax hikes alone won\u2019t fix. 62% of the federal government is entitlement program spending.<\/p>\n<p>That needs to change.<\/p>\n<p>Like it or not, both Medicare and Social Security were designed in a different era \u2014 one in which people lived shorter lives. The simple logic of reality is this: eligibility ages need to change from 65 to 70 because the math no longer supports the design of the program.<\/p>\n<p>Just for clarity\u2019s sake, I\u2019ll repeat it: people live longer, so the eligibility ages need to change.<\/p>\n<p>And yes, the time has come for \u201cmeans testing\u201d \u2014 rich folks shouldn\u2019t get benefits. If you have investment income over, say, $250,000 you don\u2019t get Social Security. If you\u2019re in that income bracket, you don\u2019t get Medicare for free \u2014 but you should have the option of buying in (something, by the way, that should be an option for everyone, and again, because younger people are healthy, improve the revenue to expense ratio for the program).<\/p>\n<p>To be sure, government needs to be cut. Not to drag it to the bathtub and drown it, but more like the way we cut back a rose bush, so it can grow back stronger and healthy. Right now, the federal government is a mess \u2014 sickly and wasteful, like a rose bush left unattended for 20 years. There are numerous areas where government overreaches \u2014 stormwater management, anyone? \u2014 and strangles business and innovation.<\/p>\n<p>This is not to say the process won\u2019t be painful. We\u2019ll cut things we need and need to restore them. But we\u2019ll also cut things we were sure we couldn\u2019t do without \u2014 and it will turn out we could.<\/p>\n<p>So, yes, we need to cut across the board, including defense \u2014 where we have duplicate, expensive and often ineffective programs forced on us by members of Congress putting their district and maybe a few campaign contributions over the national good.<\/p>\n<p>The savings will allow us to cut the deficit, spend money on desperately needed infrastructure and spend in a logical, sensible way on things that actually grow our economy and create jobs.<\/p>\n<p>These are facts and it\u2019s high time someone pointed them out.<\/p>\n<p>To fix this mess, everyone is going to have to swallow hard and live with something they don\u2019t like, including, we the public at large. And we need to reward those who are trying to honestly talk about fixing things, rather than immediately plan to challenge them in a primary for not hewing to a narrow worldview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both sides seem more focused on talking points than facts By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times Before, we get started here, my thoughts and prayers to the people of Newtown, Conn. It is a community so much like so many parts of Chester County, it is impossible not to feel both sympathy and horror. As [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,7],"tags":[144,1717,2313,1718,796,2378],"class_list":["post-12933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-featured","tag-budget","tag-democrats","tag-fiscal-cliff","tag-republicans","tag-spending","tag-tax-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}