How Can You and I Stop our Incompetent Government From Wasting most of our Tax Dollars?

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart

Let’s talk about tax revenue, and how our government wastes more than 50 cents of every dollar. Let’s talk about the fact that our nation’s richest citizens and largest corporations pay little or no taxes thanks to a tax code which is 6,871 pages long. 99 percent of those pages are ways in which the super-rich can avoid paying their fair share.

The national debt in 2024 is estimated to be $34.59 trillion dollars. However, Trump and his party of cowards and hypocrites continue to propose additional tax cuts for less than one percent of the American people, who just happen to donate to their campaigns.

I ADD ONE ISSUE WHICH CLEARLY DISPLAYS THE INCOMPETENCE OF OUR GOVERNMENT

Each year our government passes a budget for the upcoming fiscal year. However, there exists a situation unique to our failed system. America has a “debt ceiling.” It is of no concern that the amount of money to be spent in the upcoming year was agreed to, this is a separate situation, and each year the Republican Party threatens a government shutdown if the money is not spent according to their demands.

I have no doubt that the citizens of every other developed nation are laughing at the stupidity of our government, and our country’s failure to support the social changes in the world as they move forward into the 21^st century, while America is regressing into the mid-twentieth century.

MILITARY SPENDING IS NEARING ONE BILLION DOLLARS EACH YEAR

No agency in our nation wastes more tax money than our military. The Pentagon receives an increase in their budget each year although they waste over half of their allotment. No one has the courage to admit that since WWII, the United States has lost every war. Our military is not trained to fight battles in modern warfare, although its budget is five-times more than all other nations combined.

The greatest failure by the Pentagon, and its most expensive toy, began the planning stage in 1995, but didn’t take its first test flight until 2006. The Lockheed Lightning F-35 has become the most expensive project in our military’s history.

Cost overruns, delays, and redesign raise questions about the reliability and effectiveness of the most expensive war machine ever produced, but not satisfactorily completed 29 years later

 It is estimated to cost over $1.7 trillion to buy, operate, and sustain," the Government Accountability Office reported in April. As of 2018, the New York Times reported, "flying an F-35A costs about $44,000 per hour on average — about double the cost of operating the Navy's Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet."

And yet we wonder why the average American “can’t have nice things.”

IT WOULD REQUIRE A HUGE BOOK TO LIST ALL THE STUPIDITY OF NATION’S GOVERNMENT

Some of you have read about some of the moronic expenditures by our corrupt and incompetent government, from studying the methane released from the excretion of cows, to the infamous $10,000 toilet seat cover. However nothing has cost more or more idiotic than useless investigations demanded from the right side of the aisle.

Trump and his cronies are calling his indictments and trials “political.” These were real crimes and he deserves punishment. However, “Benghazi” and the use of a “private cell phone” were political. “Republicans” have been desperate for votes over the last 40+ years.

What concerns me most are efforts by Trump’s failed party to reduce or eliminate the only effective laws passed in the last 92 years: Social Security and Medicare.

America’s government is not known for caring about its people, and any changes in these self-sustaining programs would be criminal. They are definitely not “entitlements.”

HOW CAN YOU AND I STOP THE INSANITY?

The American people have a single weapon in the fight against our government’s incompetence and apathy towards the average American: our vote.

The old, white men who love wars, as long as they or their families are spared military service, must be removed from the positions of power and destruction in Washington. America needs more women and more minorities in Congress. These groups tend to include all Americans in their efforts to move our nation forward into the 21^st century.

For too many years our government has chosen a backwards path. Military might, and profits for the super-rich and corporations have been the priority. The policy of “profits before people,” must end.

America is rated last in the quality of life for its people: this must change, but it’s up to you. Vote intelligently, not for a party, but for the candidate who will support your needs and wishes.

Mail in, or vote early if you can. Election day is November 5^th.

Op-ed by James Turnage

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Source: https://theweek.com/us-military/1020858/the-f-35-fighter-jets-troubled-history