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Independence, MO —
Citizens! If you are one who constantly berates your federal government yet never writes your representative, or if you are always ready to put in your two cents but never do, then here’s your chance.
While these is debatable evidence where the idiomatic adage “my two cents” originated, Sen. Patty Murray, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, is soliciting suggestions on creating a working 2014 fiscal budget.
“I want to bring the voices of the American people into a budget process and conversation that is too often limited to bureaucrats and politicians,” the senator from Washington state explains on the Senate website. “I feel very strongly that politicians and bureaucrats shouldn’t be making our budget decisions in a vacuum, but that the ideas, stories, values, and priorities of families across the country have a loud voice at the table and a platform to be heard. Tell us what you think. Share your stories about how federal budget decisions have impacted your family, your community, and your job. Let us know what issues we should be focused on. And pass along your ideas for how we can tackle our budget challenges responsibly.”
Before you throw in your two cents, I suggest you peruse the 2013 budget and see where you can slice and dice such items as highway and bridge infrastructure, affordable health care, jobs, Social Security, Medicare, education, taxes or the defense budget.
The 2013 defense budget hovers at $524.4 billion.
Joan McCarter, writing for Daily Kos warns, “The $525.4 billion does not include $88.5 billion for unbridged costs of wars overseas, called Overseas Contingency Operations.”
She presents other hidden items such as Pentagon spending, funds for national intelligence, bomb making, the Coast Guard, national security, customs and border patrol, cost of wars past and Veterans affairs that come to a staggering $977.5 billion. Even without those added figures our defense budget is more than 13 other major countries combined.
So, every two cents, or billion, that we can cut out of the budget will be appreciated. Sen. Murray and her committee want to know what federal investments and programs you value before they present their budget in the spring.
Go to http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/ and then get out your pencil and calculator and make believe you are a senator with a fiscal knife and two cents.
I give you President John Adams’ toast: Independence forever.
Jerry Plantz lives in Lee’s Summit. His website is at www.Jerryplantz.com. Reach him at jerryplantz@msn.com.
Citizens! If you are one who constantly berates your federal government yet never writes your representative, or if you are always ready to put in your two cents but never do, then here’s your chance.
While these is debatable evidence where the idiomatic adage “my two cents” originated, Sen. Patty Murray, chair of the Senate Budget Committee, is soliciting suggestions on creating a working 2014 fiscal budget.
“I want to bring the voices of the American people into a budget process and conversation that is too often limited to bureaucrats and politicians,” the senator from Washington state explains on the Senate website. “I feel very strongly that politicians and bureaucrats shouldn’t be making our budget decisions in a vacuum, but that the ideas, stories, values, and priorities of families across the country have a loud voice at the table and a platform to be heard. Tell us what you think. Share your stories about how federal budget decisions have impacted your family, your community, and your job. Let us know what issues we should be focused on. And pass along your ideas for how we can tackle our budget challenges responsibly.”
Before you throw in your two cents, I suggest you peruse the 2013 budget and see where you can slice and dice such items as highway and bridge infrastructure, affordable health care, jobs, Social Security, Medicare, education, taxes or the defense budget.
The 2013 defense budget hovers at $524.4 billion.
Joan McCarter, writing for Daily Kos warns, “The $525.4 billion does not include $88.5 billion for unbridged costs of wars overseas, called Overseas Contingency Operations.”
She presents other hidden items such as Pentagon spending, funds for national intelligence, bomb making, the Coast Guard, national security, customs and border patrol, cost of wars past and Veterans affairs that come to a staggering $977.5 billion. Even without those added figures our defense budget is more than 13 other major countries combined.
So, every two cents, or billion, that we can cut out of the budget will be appreciated. Sen. Murray and her committee want to know what federal investments and programs you value before they present their budget in the spring.
Go to http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/ and then get out your pencil and calculator and make believe you are a senator with a fiscal knife and two cents.
I give you President John Adams’ toast: Independence forever.
Jerry Plantz lives in Lee’s Summit. His website is at www.Jerryplantz.com. Reach him at jerryplantz@msn.com.
