Balanced Budget Amendment Hurts Americans- Revise Free Trade Instead

You know, at first the idea of a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution seems like a good idea, maybe even a cure all great idea that will end our debt issues for good. This is what small government Republicans want you to think. And, consequently, it is completely FALSE.

As near as I can tell, the purpose of this amendment would be to be a budgetary safety net during bad economic times. It would keep spending at or below revenue in times of low revenue.

Those words are key "in times of low revenue". It also needs to be stated that constitutional amendments supersede all laws .

So let us apply it to our federal budget today. We are in a place where revenue is much lower than expenditures. It seems that this kind of amendment would be helpful now right?

Wrong.

In balancing the budget currently, it is clear that cuts need to be made and/or revenue needs to be found. It is a mathematical certainty that to balance the budget (as required by our fictitious amendment) that one or both of these two things need to be done.

Let us start by looking at "raising revenue". In the short term, this can only be accomplished by raising taxes or selling assets. I think we would agree that selling assets is the shortest term solution we can come up with as it is finite in quantity. The United States did this historically with lands in the Western United States for a variety of reasons. But, it really isn't a viable long-term option. We can't make land to sell.

Raising taxes will also raise revenue if done correctly. But, raising taxes on the consumer will actually harm the economy further. We currently have an economic situation in this country where there is plenty of supply of goods and not enough demand for those goods. Taxing the middle and working classes will cause them to have less money to spend, causing the government's revenue to decline in other areas (corporate and small business tax revenue).

Taxes can be raised on the wealthy and on corporations. However we also run the risk of businesses fleeing the country or else sending jobs over seas if it is raised too high. In the short term this is bad, but in the long term it can be good, IF we as a nation revise our import tariffs.

In theory, free trade is the best thing we can have. HOWEVER, the table isn't balanced. So long as foreign nations have the ability to undercut American businesses, free trade agreements are a catastrophic failure. We need a free trade affirmative action plan to balance the tables. We need to raise prices on goods that are imported so that American companies can compete. Detractors will say that this makes things more expensive for Americans. It does. BUT, it also provides them with the quality income that they will use to pay for it by creating higher paying jobs in America. The way it is today, a lot of people can't afford what is imported either. They have no job. There is plenty of supply but no demand.

Getting back to the budget amendment, we have a second option in regards to our hypothetically existent balanced budget amendment, and that is to cut spending. So where do we cut spending exactly? We can end tax subsidies to companies that undercut American producers. That would be a very good idea. We could remove tax loop holes which allow corporations like GE to pay NOTHING in taxes while receiving BILLIONS in federal subsidies. This would help, but it wouldn't solve the entire problem and it wouldn't solve the immediate debt issue.

We need to balance the budget this year (in our hypothetical). We have several major expenditures that we can cut that will solve the remaining budget shortfall. Those include in alphabetical order: disaster aid (FEMA et. al.), education, federal law enforcement agencies (including the CIA, DEA, FBI, and TSA, etc.), Medicaid, Medicare, military spending, Social Security, and other similar sources.

The question is where are we most likely to cut funding? I contend that with our current Congress, funding is most likely to be cut ON SOCIAL PROGRAMS first, leaving a vast majority of federal agencies and military spending completely or essentially intact. I believe that a balanced budget amendment will FORCE GOVERNMENT TO SHRINK.

With a balanced budget amendment kiss the following programs goodbye: federal student loans, heating oil subsidies (for consumers), public school funding, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security payouts, food stamps, welfare funding, national parks, free and reduced school lunch and dozens more.

The wars will continue. Military spending will continue. Federal subsidies of corporations will continue. The American people will bear the brunt of this proposed amendment. WE WILL BE HURT AND CORPORATIONS WILL CONTINUE TO PROFIT.

There are other solutions, as I have mentioned above, we need to create a sort of affirmative action plan for free trade agreements that balances the table for us. This will bring jobs back to this country, bring consumption back to the middle and working classes (as they will have the money to do so again), and the government will return to a budget surplus as tax revenue will soar. With this extra money we can pay off our debts, protect our elderly, children, and under-served, AND leave this nation in a good economic condition for our children and our children's children.

Life, The Universe, and Everything

We have two scientific theories...  The Law of the Conservation of Energy, which states that the amount of net energy in a closed system remains constant (nothing spontaneously creates or disappears) and the Law of the Conservation of Mass, which states the same but for mass.  Essentially, both state that in a closed system, things do not appear or disappear.  The amount of mass and energy in the universe is the same as it was at the dawn of man and will be the same at its demise, granted that energy and mass will take on different forms, but the quantity of energy and mass remain constant.  I would add that mass can become energy (such as gasoline combustion) and energy can become mass (such as weather).  They are interchangeable if the correct conditions are present--in the case of weather that condition would be sunlight; in the case of gasoline combustion that would be fuel, oxygen, and ignition.

When you die your body decomposes and the electrical impulses throughout your body break down into less complex forms of those entities.  Your body gives off heat until it is the same temperature as its surroundings; your body decays until it is comparable to its surroundings.  The prior process can only take a little while.  The latter could take centuries or millenia to complete fully.  Eventually even your bones disintegrate.  Eventually you become indistinguishable from your surroundings (the earth you were buried in for instance). 

Mineral enriched soil grows plants or else remains part of the earth (even if only impactful based on the infinitesimally minute gravity your disintegrated remains provide).  The universe moves on.  We do too.  Just as a different type of existence.  Nothing leaves or enters the universe ever.  Mass and energy are funneled through our bodies throughout life and those things sustain us as we are.  We are a vessel for the transference of energy to mass and of mass to energy.  These entities impact us, their vessel.  Energy and mass grow us in our sex cell form from preexisting systems in our parents' bodies (which were also nourished by energy and mass), at conception energy and mass add more to build a human being.  We eat food and gain energy and mass throughout our lives to grow and to change.  Even as we age, our cells divide and are replaced periodically using the energy derived from food which were derived from bundles of mass called seeds or embryos, nourished by the sun (energy).  We are part of a cycle of transference between energy and mass.

One may ask, when did the mass-energy cycle start.  I believe that it is cyclical, as nothing ever enters or leaves the universe, just transfers from mass to energy and back again.  The universe has no beginning or end.  The Big Bang is just a violent movement from energy to mass.  The accelerated growth of the universe is an illusion based on the creation of new "space" from energy along the skeletal structure of the universe.  Blue shift is the transfer of "space" from mass into energy en masse.  Red shift is the opposite. 

If there is no beginning or end, then there is no creator.  I have shown a way in which the universe does not need a creator.  I have shown a way in which the universe does not need anything "beyond" the universe to exist, continue, or change.  It is a self-sustaining unit that has no beginning or end and no heaven or hell.  "After we die" is comparable to "before we were born" in experience for us in terms of how we should view it.

What is the purpose of the universe then?  There is no point of the universe in terms of what the universe would "think" the point of existence is.  There can't be.  Why do we exist?  To others we exist for companionship, love, as a writer, parent, teacher, employee, etc.; but, we don't exist for any reason for ourselves.  Our "purpose" is only in relation to others.  We do not have a purpose in relation to ourselves, the same as a computer doesn't have a "purpose" except in relation to humans or the ocean doesn't have a "purpose" except in relation to that which lives in it.  The same is true for the universe.  The "purpose" of the universe is dependent on the needs of those entities residing within it which have needs that it can fulfill.  As the universe is everything and a closed system, the purpose of the universe to us and to everything in the universe is "everything".  Everything is the purpose of the universe.  Remember that nothing ever enters or leaves the universe.  It is self-sustaining and self-providing.

The only question that I have is whether there is a finite or infinite number of possible forms for mass and energy and for interactions between mass and energy.  If there are a finite number of forms of mass and energy and a finite number of ways that they can interact, then the universe never changes permanently.  This is the theory I am leading to.  Like a pencil sketch, what is formed can be erased, no matter how long it is there or how grand or complex it is.  This theory suggests that the universe does not have a "net evolution", in that eventually any changes change back to their previous states.  This also means that there can be no "greater meaning" or "purpose" for the universe insofar as permanent growth.  That which is built will eventually crumble.  Judging by examples on the human scale, I tend to believe this is the most likely scenario.

The second scenario states that there are finite number of forms of mass and energy but that there is an infinite number of ways they can react.  This scenario is illogical to me as it breaks with my perception that the universe as we know it has constant laws.  Science has many such "constants" such as E=mc2 or C2H4 + 3 O2 + Energy -> 2 CO2 + 2 H20 + ENERGY.  These constants and a million others are examples of evidence for universal laws-- i.e. that the universe is governed by a set of rules (granted it would be a fairly large list).  I do not believe that the force of gravity in Area A would ever be different than in Area B if all conditions are identical.  Therefore, this scenario does not seem plausible.  If there are a finite number of forms for mass and energy and an infinite number of ways they can react, then there is no method to the madness so to speak--the entire universe and everything in it would be completely random.  Observational evidence suggests otherwise-- that there is a set quantity of rules that are constant.

The third scenario states that there are an infinite number of forms of mass and energy and a finite number of ways it can interact with each other.  This scenario is interesting in that it cannot be proven or disproven.  There is evidence, however, that it is not the scenario that the universe runs by.  For this proof, lets look at mass, which is generally visible or at least we can comprehend its existence.  Energy is too illusive to us currently; we do not yet know its true nature.  Note this, as it is important in that without all the information we cannot prove this scenario right or wrong.  So, in regards to mass, we have the periodic table as a good starting point.  Of course, the universe is actually made of strings of vibrating energy, but we are sticking only to the levels which we can physically see and will then make generalized educated guesses about that which we cannot yet comprehend.

The periodic table has grown over time to include an increasing number of elements, however the higher we get on the table the more unstable these elements are.  Indeed as we get to the 100's we see elements which cannot exist except for brief moments and in high-pressure situations.  The universe tends towards low-pressure--entropy--when existing as mass.  It is safe to say that there are far fewer areas of high pressure than low pressure in the universe with even a cursory glance of the night sky.  The centers of stars and laboratories can create high pressures, but for the most part they don't exist.  Therefore, the higher end periodic atoms also cannot exist except for in increasingly less likely higher pressure situations.  (The higher the pressure you need to maintain the atom, the less likely it exists.)  Therefore we can say that in all likelihood, the interactions which mass and energy can take must tend towards finite even if it cannot be proven to make it to that point.  There comes a point where the likelihood of additional kinds of interactions becomes nearly infinitesimally unlikely.  Therefore, I believe this scenario is wrong.

The final scenario is one in which there are an infinite number of forms of mass and energy and an infinite number of ways in which they can interact.  I believe this scenario to be impossible based on the reasons why scenarios 2 and 3 are impossible.  There cannot be an infinite forms of mass and energy because there are laws which govern the universe and there cannot be an infinite number of interactions between mass and energy because there comes a point when the quantity of types of interactions tends towards the finite and the likelihood of there not being any new kinds of interactions nears infinity.

With a finite number of forms mass and energy can take and a finite number of ways they can interact, eventually every possible combination will happen.  This is a reincarnation of a sense isn't it?  Perhaps I should think more on this next time.

The Purpose of Life

This one's been bugging me for a while now.  What is the purpose of life?  Not the meaning of life.  There is no MEANING of life.  The word meaning is ambiguous.  But what is the purpose or end goal.  And not of your life or my life but of all life everywhere.  I'm convinced there is a single, simple purpose for all life that everything is driving towards or against a goal in either.......

And that's about as far as I got before realizing the answer.  First, the goal isn't an end point.  The universe is cyclical and self-contained.  So the purpose for life has to be life itself.  The goal is life, in all forms.  The purpose of the universe and everything in it is to exist.  Many would say that this isn't a reason, but it is because they're focusing on a human-centered understanding of the universe.  A linear model.  But the universe is cyclical.  It is one giant cycle from matter to energy to matter.  And the answer must also be cyclical.  The answer is the question.  What is the purpose for life?  The purpose for life is life.

There's a Reason Why There Are No Good Politicians

That is to say there is a reason why there are no politicians with genuine interests at heart. Genuine interests can be defined as points of view on which you are inflexible to opposition. For instance, you are either for human rights or you're not for human rights. You don't have to be AGAINST human rights necessarily to not be for them. Politicians are not political activists. A political activist's interest is the success of a point of view. A politician's is not.

There comes a point where a political activist, which I believe all worthwhile politicians begin as, cease to be an activist for an issue and begin to be a politician whose focus is politicking. There are of course politicians from different lines of work, particularly corporate America, but that plague is best left for discussion at a different time.

The crux of the difference between an activist and a politician is flexibility. Activists are inflexible on their positions. Politicians are born out of a belief that to get something you must give something. Compromise.

Compromise a little on women's rights to gain a little to pass a health care bill. The politician rationalizes that overall more good is done. But in the end, they are deluded. How can one measure the life of one over the life of another? How can one person's civil rights be considered better or more worthwhile in this political climate than another? At what point does the line get drawn? At what point will the politician completely sell out their principles?

In for a little, in for a lot. The first time is always the hardest. At what point does a politician simply cease to function as a purposeful voice for their constituents of all backgrounds?

There's a reason they're called campaign promises, because everyone knows that they'll never be kept. The politicians of the world say keep quiet. Your person won the race. It doesn't even matter who you are or who actually won. They're there. Be unwaveringly supportive. Or else, they might lose.

The political activist says the politician is not doing their job. They hold the politician's feet to the fire. They press for their point of view at all costs. Even if their candidate loses. It doesn't matter; they weren't their candidate anyways. The activist was told it was their candidate by the politicians of the world. But the candidate never supported them anyways.

Politicians favor their jobs more than they favor their constituents. All politicians. They believe, even if they know they're giving in a little to get a little, that they are doing some good that wouldn't have been done otherwise. What they fail to realize is that they are doing some bad too. A health care bill would have been great, had it been the one that didn't slight women. A civil rights Amendment would be great, if it didn't just serve those who the nation already gives civil rights to.

Political compromise does not make the nation a better place for everyone. It doesn't even make the nation a better place for some. It makes everyone unhappy because everyone didn't get what they wanted. Some issues, like civil rights, like health care, do not have shades of gray between the black and white.

Yes a health care bill will help many people. But its going to hurt many others. And as is, the concessions we've made to insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry have set us back decades in exchange for something that exactly no one wanted.

The same runs true with politicians. Make inroads in one area and lose in others. You never really get what you want from your politicians. Few get their first choice for President, Congress, or Governor. And none are satisfied with the concessions given to injustice and greed. But they do try, I'll give them that. They try as hard as they can, spend millions of dollars, to try to convince you that they're doing a good job. That's the reason why there are no good politicians.

If you get stuck on a deserted isle with your choice of a politician or an activist. Pick the activist. At least you'll know they stand for something that isn't themselves.