OPINION:
Let me get this straight: Our president is requiring our sacrifice and merely a “fair share” tax increase on the rich (which will be a tax on all of us, eventually) in order to balance the budget. For what are we sacrificing, exactly?
In the past two years, we have had stimulus spending in the trillions, which led to an anemic recovery and a looming double-dip recession. Additional spending, which has led to a $14.3 trillion deficit, translates into more than 96 percent of our annual gross domestic product.
We also got a $1 trillion health care bill no one is happy with - not the liberals who wanted more government intervention and not conservatives who rebel against this encroaching government in our personal lives.
Mr. Obama believes that allowing us to keep our own money is equivalent to government spending, which contributed to the deficit. You see, it’s our fault.
The president likes to demonize corporations. Yet the largest corporation in our nation is the U.S. government, which confiscates more than $2.5 trillion a year from us. No other corporation has this ability to simply take. What do we get from our “shared sacrifice”? Certainly not services on par with those of private industry.
It’s time we returned to those days of fiscal responsibility and freedom. Wewon’t get there by taxing the wealthy - it will happen by returning to a limited government.
STEPHEN QUANSTROM
Fort Collins, Colo.
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