Common-Sense Proposals

               In last night’s State of the Union Address, President Obama laid out proposals to increase economic growth and build a stronger middle class. Such proposals included widening the pre-school education system so everyone can get a fair shot at an early age; restricting gun ownership to law enforcement and military personnel; and raising the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. These are common-sense proposals that everyone should accept as right, right?

                I’d like to live in a world surrounded by free puppy dogs and ice cream too, Mr. President, but this is not the united states of Candyland. This term, “common-sense proposals,” has been thrown around by many Democratic members in Congress and the White House but they couldn’t be farther from common sense. 

Pre-school education is important, but not necessary. Recently, a government study showed that any benefits from the pre-school program, Head Start, will wear off by the time that child reaches third grade. At this time in a child’s development the family should be responsible for nurturing their own child’s education and curiosity. If we put the responsibility back in the family’s hands and save the taxpayer money for growing the higher educational system, then maybe they can, once again, afford to go to a good college. The family unit should focus on teaching the child basic human morals as this stage and that should provide the strongest foundation in preventing adulthood crime, drugs, and violence.

                If we would just provide our children with basic morals then maybe we can drop the argument of excessive gun control. Restricting gun ownership of private citizens is not only harmful to their own self-defense, it’s unconstitutional. The drafters of the Bill of Rights wrote the second amendment so that, in the face of a tyrannical government, the people could rise up against it—after all, the government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. Even though this situation has little chance of happening today, situations have recently arisen in Newtown, Denver, and Los Angeles in which American citizens needed a weapon to defend themselves. How many innocent victims could have been saved from these unnecessary tragedies caused by out-of-control aggressors? We can agree on background checks and securing those weapons in a safe. But we cannot agree to give up our second amendment right and open ourselves up to becoming a victim. However, our threat of becoming a victim does not stop there.

                Our economy is in no state for this President to demand wage increases. The State of our Union may be strong, but the state of our economy remains weak. And proposals to increase the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour crush business’s hopes of hiring additional employees and growing our economy. I’m not sure whether our President is betting on inflation, half the population going into retirement, or just promising more things to a people already disappointed by false promises of the past; but this policy of raising the minimum wage to such an excess will only cause massive firings and a higher unemployment rate. If someone cuts your budget, then you must cut your costs—which means cutting employees. This is the common-sense repercussion.

                It’s not difficult to see the false promises made in last night’s speech if we only think about this rationally. Someone, somewhere, somehow has to pay for these policies. Unfortunately, it will fall on my generation—most of whom voted for this President because of his liberal social agenda. So I say to my generation: when you’re broke, jobless, drowning in college debt, and are not living your dream, just remember that this could have changed with real common-sense proposals. Let’s think before we vote so we may have the opportunity to be the greatest nation on Earth.

Good or Bad Economy, We’re in Trouble

Whether or not the economy and the labor market are improving, we will still be left with an overconfident President for the next four years. If we create jobs and growth we will hear the triumph of President Obama’s economic policies and how they worked to free us from the fear of another recession. If we tumble further down the rabbit hole of anemic growth and rising unemployment then we will hear that it’s because we haven’t raised enough revenue through taxes.

President Obama spoke this weekend on CBS and his message was no different than before: “There is no doubt we need additional revenue.” What’s appalling to me is the sheer arrogance of a man who gets what he wants and then continues to ask for more. The fiscal cliff was partially solved through raising tax revenue for the government; however, this policy goal was not coupled with a strict plan of necessary spending reduction. To put this more colloquially, would a credit card company really authorize such an out of control spender that had no plan of paying off their debt? Doubtful.

I agree with many out there that this fight over the debt ceiling and the fiscal cliff have been delayed and propagandized long enough. But, I will not have such irrational spending plans be the answer. Call me selfish, but it is my generation that will eventually have to pay for all this out-of-control spending along with a ballooning social security fund—which, by the way, my generation will reap none of the benefits of—and don’t forget our wonderful educational programs that slapped us with a large bill of student loans that we must repay by acquiring jobs that do not exist. This is the economy we look forward to due to bickering political positions.

This is not how the economy is supposed to work. Let’s leave the economic policy initiatives to those who studied economic policy and, when we are growing again, we can share it better with those who need it. Government finances are not so different from family finances—eventually you must cut costs to balance the checkbook.