The Best Post of the Week of May 28, 2023. A week that nearly lived in infamy, and in some ways it will.
It was low theater of the worst kind as the nation slouched towards a global recession, extremist on both ends of the political scale declaring it was better to murder the economy than compromise on what almost always was a bs principal. Leftist imagined the deal taking food, purloined from the tables of others, from the mouths of babes, so that their mothers could not serve the worker's state. Rightest declared it better to be economically dead than to allow one more greenback be spent on, um. . .spent on. . . well spent. Politicians counted, in many instances, how many votes would be needed to save the economy, and then seeing that it was saved, voted no, so they could go home and tell their constituents, the very ones who would have been economically dead in a ditch covered with fecal lies, that they'd voted the constituents consciences.
A sorry show.
The week did start off with really good news, however.
Corner Crossing Upheld in a victory for sportsmen, public lands, and Wyomingites in general
Ranch Yard Lion
A Civics Lesson
If I were a middle school civics teacher, I'd give a simple project to my students.
Which they'd definitely be graded on.
It'd be "balance the U.S. Federal budget", using the actual parameters that control that process, which are:
- 63% of the Federal Budget is non-discretionary. That money must be spent, so you can't touch that. No cuts. This category is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other mandatory programs.
- 30% is discretionary spending. You can cut that.
- 14% of the budget is on Defense. That's discretionary, so you can cut that. In FY 2023 the overall Defense was about $777 Billion.
- 16% of the budget it non defense discretionary, you can cut that. This is funding for every government program and office that isn't Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or some other mandatory program, and isn't defense.
- The balance, about 7%, is net interest. You pretty much have to spend that.
- The total outlays, i.e., expenditures, going into the process, amount to $5.9 Trillion.
- The total revenues are $4.9 Trillion.
- A $1 Trillion deficit, therefore, exists going into the process.
Regarding revenues, we have this.
- 32% of all U.S. Revenue comes through payroll taxes.
- 53% of all U.S. Revenue comes from income taxes.
- 9% of all U.S. Revenue comes from corporate taxes.
- 6% of all U.S. Revenue comes from other sources, such as fees, specialized taxes, tariffs, and gift and estate taxes.
So the project is to either find enough cuts to wipe out 1 Trillion in expenditures, or raise enough revenue to cover $1 Trillion in expenditures, or both.
Easy, right?
Well, theoretically, this wouldn't be a hard assignment. But I'd also grade for attachment to realism. Can you slash defense by 50% in a world in which Russia, North Korean and Chine are getting experimenting with real war? Can you cut other Federal programs to the bone if that means no highway funding and the like? Can you foist administration of Federal programs on the states?
I'd also throw in the suggestion that the students research historical tax rates and tariffs. And I'd have them look at how user fees work.
Of course, I'm not a civics teacher and I don't have to deal with today's education environment. Had I been assigned this project while in junior high it would actually be much harder to do, than now, as the Internet thankfully didn't exist. But also, parents rarely stormed the school board with cries of "my kids are getting an education in the real world rather than my pet fantasies and I don't like it!" People didn't take kids out of public school in order to avoid educating them by keeping them at home and "homeschooling", as some homeschooling is now. You get the point. Now, you'd probably find the school board meeting packed with people who had a die hard attachment to a concept of "liberty" that reflects a belief in a past United States that never existed, and you'd end up packing your bags and enrolling in law school.
No matter what you think of the crime, the woman accussed of torching the Casper Abortion Clinic. . .
is just about the happiest looking criminal defendant you'll ever see.
She just looks genuinely happy.
No real comment here, other than that.
