Because both sides in this ongoing budget debate point to different symptoms of our fiscal crisis they propose solutions that are not only different but contradictory. Compromising between the two positions might seem like the natural approach, especially for politicians, but the result of a compromise between these two particular positions will only be two half-treated symptoms, with an untreated and worsening pathology. We do have a spending problem, but ignoring the driver of that spending growth, and balancing the budget by slashing it, will only abandon a desperate population in their time of greatest need. The long term costs of such a policy (i.e. crime) will be much greater than the short term savings generated. We do have a revenue problem, since much of it is caused by an increase in the untaxed wealth of the rich, it may be reasonable to increase the taxes on that income. However, this solution is insufficient, and only temporary, since further declines in the health of the middle class will negate any savings.
The ongoing destruction of the middle class in the US is at the root of the US government's fiscal crisis. A debate between spending cuts and tax hikes is inadequate and does the American people a disservice. A national debate over the health of the middle class and how to heal it will be no less contentious than the current debate. Nearly every political group in existence has wildly differing ideas on the topic (describing any of them adequately would take a much more in depth article than this one). In the current debate over the Federal budget the proposed solutions of both parties do not address the problem. A political compromise capable of solving our nation's financial problems will only be possible once the political debate shifts to include the revitalization of the middle class as a fundamental part of the solution.
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