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    Strength in Numbers: Our Plan to Balance the Budget and Eliminate the National Debt!
    Strength in Numbers: Our Plan to Balance the Budget and Eliminate the National Debt!
    Strength in Numbers: Our Plan to Balance the Budget and Eliminate the National Debt!
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    Strength in Numbers: Our Plan to Balance the Budget and Eliminate the National Debt!

    By Spencer Kliese & Associates

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    About this ebook

    A presentation of ideas to balance the federal budget and eliminate the national debt. This book presents a unique set of solutions to our ever growing problem.
    The solutions presented are an effort to simplify the solutions and make the government both more efficient and user friendly for citizens.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateFeb 17, 2015
    ISBN9781483550411
    Strength in Numbers: Our Plan to Balance the Budget and Eliminate the National Debt!

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      Book preview

      Strength in Numbers - Spencer Kliese & Associates

      ISBN: 978-1-4835504-1-1

      Contents

      Identifying the Problem

      The Lie to support the policy!

      Recap

      The TAX CODE

      Individual Tax Rates

      Twelve Year plan

      Corporate Tax Rates

      To simplify the tax code.

      Special Tax Status Entities

      Non-Profit Organizations

      How we all win from this.

      The I.R.S. Problem

      Decentralization

      Downsizing

      How do we handle Tax Cheats?

      The Estate Tax

      The Big Stick principal.

      What is Severe?

      How do we handle Tax Cheats?

      Corporate Settlements

      Social Security

      The Plan for Social Security

      41 to 60 – the odd men out!

      Employer/Corporate Contributions

      The Welfare problem.

      Cheaters, Fraudsters and those who help.

      The Success story

      The EPA and the Department of Energy

      Unaccountable Bureaucrats

      Medicaid/Medicare/VA Medical Services

      How’s it adding up so far?

      Healthcare – Medicare/Medicaid/VA system

      Perspective matters!

      Foreign Aid

      Research and Development spending

      Leadership

      Shared Sacrifice.

      How the Federal Reserve fits in.

      How can the Fed be part of the solution?

      Power versus Strength!

      Powerful Obstacles

      The Power of the Media!

      Wrap up.

      When we began writing this book we kept saying things like,

      The numbers don’t work.

      Where do we get numbers we can trust?

      Are you sure about these numbers?

      Numbers are amazing things and they have meaning in absolute terms, in chronological terms and even in emotional terms. Everyone we spoke with about this book had either a favorite number or a lucky number that meant something to them much more than the absolute value of the number. Let me give you some quick examples:

      One person said 5 – my first broker number on Wall Street.

      Another said 18 – my lucky number growing up

      Another said 1969 – The best year ever, Man lands on the moon and the even more amazing, Mets win the World Series.

      And still another said 44 – Hank Aaron the real home run king

      So as you can see numbers have meaning that doesn’t always add up to a greater number, sometimes it’s add up to a better feeling or place.

      When you start dealing with large numbers they have STRENGTH. A Million dollars can build you almost any home you want. But if you owe 2 Million dollars on the mortgage it can be taken away quickly, Strength and power work both ways.

      So we named this book STRENGTH in NUMBERS because that is what America has by the numbers. A Strong Economy, A Strong system of Government, and an even Stronger Debt that must be dealt with so the negative Strength of the debt doesn’t overwhelm the other two.

      As with any behavioral problem, there comes a time that you stop ignoring it and have to make the decision to deal with it directly or it will consume all your energy and ruin your ability to enjoy your life. This book is about that realization for our nation and more specifically our federal government, and the problem is our national debt. On a smaller scale this book also applies to states and cities, but this book is about the federal government debt and deficit problem.

      We have chosen not to speak to or consult with a single elected official while writing this book. The problem is fiscal and belongs to the federal government, but the politicians for the last 50 years are the enablers and metaphorical drug dealers to our country’s addiction to debt. It is time for men (and women) of substance and of conscience to step forward and do what needs to be done. Our elected officials are politicians. They have proven themselves unwilling and unable to make the hard, responsible decisions for decades and the problem just continues to grow.

      Our current elected officials hide behind the fact that the national debt began long before they got there. It is akin to a 5 year old telling his mother that I shouldn’t have to clean up because I wasn’t only one who made the mess, my friends did it too after his friends have gone home. A good parent will explain to the child that they must clean the room or they can’t have friends over in the future. The parent of a spoiled child does one of two things. They either ignore the mess until it becomes completely intolerable or they throw their arms up, send the child to watch TV in another room and clean up the room. We as a country have been the second type of parent for too long and now the children, our politicians, have no sense of responsibility.

      This book is not intended to get any person or political party elected.

      This book is a serious look at what we consider to be the biggest problem facing the United States of America today. This book offers a set of ideas to solve this problem. You can agree or disagree with all or part of the solutions and ideas in this book, but please don’t pretend the problem isn’t real or that it will fix itself because then you are the problem.

      Identifying the Problem

      As a country we spend more than we take in. (By a lot!)

      This creates an ever increasing national debt. This debt demands that we pay interest to those we borrow from. Since the federal government continues this practice of spending more than we take in (a deficit) every year our debt grows and the amount of money required (debt service/interest payments) from our budget to deal with it continues to grow also.

      In its simplest form, that is the problem.

      In real numbers it is even more imposing.

      We owe over $18 Trillion. That’s $18,000,000,000,000.00

      The annual interest is over $220 Billion. $220,000,000,000.00

      In fiscal 2014 alone, we have overspent by roughly $500 Billion.

      Since this is a problem of behavior, we must find a way to change the behavior of those who run the federal government in order to solve it. How do we make that happen?

      We need people who will say what they mean and mean what they say. People who make a commitment and honor it, not parse words to change the meaning of what they said originally so that they can excuse their lack of leadership, commitment and follow through.

      The people we must look out for are those that brag about lowering the deficit as if they were actually lower the National debt. It sounds like a good thing but they are still increasing the National debt, just by less than last year.

      The chart below gives a breakdown of where our money is spent as both a percentage and an approximate dollar figure.

      As we all go through life we meet people who impact our lives in ways much larger than we expect at the time we meet them. We are blessed to have them and lucky if we can keep them with us for a long time. These people are what I like to call the Vinnys in life.

      When I first met Vinny, we were working at the same casual restaurant in our local mall. It was a great place to work because there were a lot of high school and college kids working together who for the most part got along well with each other. We spent a lot of time together outside of work.

      The first

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