I was walking past the TV today and caught a snippert of Chris Wallce on Fox News talking about Obama and taxes. The main message was Obama will raise taxes and have a devastating impact on the economy.

No one likes to pay taxes, least of all me. Here's the thing. The next time you hear a discussion like this, think of what I'm about to talk about.

Private money works no different than government money. If you spend more money than you take in, you're going to be in trouble. If you're spending more than you take in, then you either need to spend less or find a way to make more money. If you keep on borrowing, then you will eventually lose financial freedom of maneuver.

We have a government that is not collecting sufficent revenue for its expenses. Correcting this means government must either take in more revenue (raise taxes) or spend less. Problem is, spending less means someone somewhere is not getting the revenue they depend on. Either that, or we need to start asking questions like these. 

    Which prison do you want closed and let the inmates out amongst us?
    Which road or bridge do you not want built or maintained?
    How high do you want the teacher student ratio to go?
    What hours do you not want police or fire protection?
    
Do you get the idea?

And if that's still not enough, then consider this:

Let me try again to explain this to you with a different approach. The Bush Tax rates are not a tax cut. You did not get a tax cut. Your taxes have not been cut, they have been postponed and you owe more taxes than you've ever owed. A true tax cut would be when the cost of government is reduced and the savings are passed on to the taxpayers. What has happened is you have paid less in taxes, but government spending has deliberately and willfully been allowed to go up and up. That's why the National Debt has gone from $5.6 Trillion on January 21, 2001 to over $10 T today. This is money you owe, folks, tax money. The individual amount of money you owe has gone from about $20K per person to over $33 a person. If you're a family of 4 your share of the debt on a per capita basis is over $130,000. If we had done this as a deliberate choice, that would be one thing, but we did not. Instead, elected officials like George Bush, Dick Cheney and Republican Congress members played a con game talking about low taxes and hoping you would never realize the impact of their annual deficits and the growth in the national debt.

That growth in the national debt meant a reduction in the value of the dollar. The reduction in the value of the dollar drives up the cost of oil.

The amount of debt lessens our flexibility in being able to meet the financial crisis we have now.

Are things clearer to you now?