Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.) has some sobering words about our economic future in today’s New York Post:
The president could have come clean to the American people about the serious nature of Washington’s spending problem, could have discussed the need to build consensus around some tough but reasonable spending cuts. Instead, he ducked any debate on spending by promising to “call the bluff” of a straw man of his own creation.
The president’s bravado suggests that he is laying the groundwork to justify sweeping new tax hikes hitting small businesses and the middle class. If the past is prologue, the administration will brand those who oppose these tax increases as opponents of deficit reduction.
I don’t know about you, but I have absolutely no desire to send more of my earnings to Washington to be wasted. Since President Obama was sworn in we have begun to spend at the rate of $4.9 billion a day. This is unsustainable. Cantor proposes some small steps, steps that would at least demonstrate that our representatives are serious about reeling in our spending.
But we need to change the way we think about government money in a very basic way. It’s not “government money;” it our earnings.