A Country in Debt

If you consider a simple economic construct, the country and many of its citizens are living on borrowed money and therefore borrowed time.

You can blame it on any number of things, but in many cases it simply comes down to wanting what we want now, and worry about tomorrow later.

This was part of the issue involved in the financial crisis of 2008-2009 where an assumption that home prices would only continue to go up led to loans on what is best described as a whisper and a prayer.

When they didn't go up and many of the mortgages couldn't be refinanced or paid, we had a collapse that almost drove us into a depression.

To solve that problem we inserted a great amount of money into the economy via stimulus to give us a jump start.

We are still living off a series of jump starts as we haven't reigned in spending and individual income growth has not kept up with debt increases.

We can't afford many of the things we want and the Government can't afford the programs it already has.

No one seems willing to do what needs to be done to address it so I guess eat, drink and be merry, until they take the T-Bird away.

Tax Us Via Tariffs and Give it to the Wealthy

I was watching a show in which the question was asked if out dontard really believes it when he says the tariffs are paid by China?

The answer seems to be tat he does, which would have been my guess since he is imposing the tariffs on Chinese goods.

The fact that he doesn't understand this when he was in various business over his lifetime is a bit surprising.  He was not generally involved in the type of business where he would have learned this.

He was originally a developer.  Developers have their own issues related to labor and materials but dealing with tariffs is not one of them, its just part of the product cost.

Most of his other so called businesses only required the use of his name with him having little to no real involvement, except maybe approving a color or being in an ad.

Not where you would learn about much of anything and certainly not tariffs.

He then was a reality host for a period of time and once again no practical knowledge of business except how much he was getting paid.

Those who consider him a business genius should think again.

So does he understand how tariffs work?  Probably not and he obviously thinks the tax money he is collecting doesn't come from Americans.

While the tariffs increase the cost of items bought by everyone, it is by definition a regressive tax, since it is the same for everybody.

Not a Robin Hood, he takes from the poor and gives to the rich, like every self serving dontard.

Sunday Musings

Its nearing the deadline for filing taxes and many people still need to do so.

The full impact of the Republican tax law will filter its way through the economy and in what was a poor decision on their part, many Americans are going to find they are getting a smaller refund or may actually owe money even though they are paying less in total.

This is because in order to try to influence the public they had the IRS recalculate the withholding tables, to withhold less than they should have.

The amount of the extra money in each paycheck wasn't impressive and combined with other changes that occur for most people every year, such as increased health insurance cost, it was probably pretty negligible.

If you get 52 paychecks a year, or more likely 26, an extra $10 or $20 isn't going to rock your world.  You do however notice that refund check of $520 you are used to getting.  \\Its actually enough money to get something or do something.

When they don't get it, they aren't happy. Would argue its just an interest free loan to the Government, but its like forced savings.

People like refund checks and are used to them.

Capitalism and Taxes

While people are generally governed to a large extent by self interest, it isn't often that self interest and the good of the country don't go well together.

It was called the invisible hand of economics and the idea is that everybody pursuing what is best for them will result in the overall best result.

There are some problems with that, the different level of power and influence being the main one, but generally it works pretty well and is to a large extent the basis of capitalism.

No other system has in fact produced greater economic well being than capitalism.  We do have to remember that capitalism is in fact an economic system, not a social one.

Since it does in fact generate the most wealth it provides the greatest tax base.

This is where capitalism as an economic system needs to serve the greater needs of society.

It is never generally in anyone's best economic interest to fund social programs, at lest not directly.  Of course it does help stabilize society and make economic pursuits safer.

This leads to the question of what tax levels should we have to fund social programs?

Well economically it should be the largest amount that doesn't impact economic growth.

Since economic growth is the engine that drives the economy we don't want to kill it, but a tax rate is a funny thing as far as motivation goes.

At every tax rate, a capitalist will engage in activities that are profitable.

We hear some proposals talking about Tax rates as high as 70%.  We had those during some of our most prosperous times.  We have now made it possible for those who have been helped the most by this country to pay a much smaller share in the name of tax relief.

Creating an environment for success is essential but tax rates are seldom much of a factor.  Funding the programs that promotes the good of the many over the few is the role of government.

Incentives

Sometimes I hear well meaning people talk about things that they obviously don't understand.  They make statements such as "That money should be used for community incentives instead of a corporate incentive".  Of course this implies that the money actually exists.  Almost all incentives are a reduction of taxes or fees that would otherwise have to be paid.  If the project doesn't happen there is no money at all, in fact there is less money.

Take the Amazon deal that is now not happening in New York.  It would have created about 25,000 jobs and would have redeveloped an area that is currently underutilized.  Yes to some extent it would have led to some disruptions of people living there, but it would have provided a strong tax base in the area, created all those jobs, created all the secondary jobs, increased the need for housing and in exchange they would have received about $3 billion in incentives.

Yes they are a rich company and maybe they don't need incentives but now that they cancelled the deal, the incentives won't happen, but neither will all the other things.  So New York doesn't have $3 billion to spend, they have less taxes and less income taxes for the indefinite future.

It means there is less money to spend on schools, and other priorities as well as less jobs in general.

Is this a better outcome than having a thriving business in Long Island City that would employ tens of thousands and pay direct and indirect taxes for the foreseeable future?

That is probably a matter of opinion, but what is clear is that the incentive money actually doesn't exist without the deal.

There are no spoils from this victory.  Just less all around.

Who Benefits

Your perception of things is clearly influenced by your environment.

If you look at color coded maps of the last presidential election you see a solid block of red in large areas with blue on the coasts and Illinois.

Many of the red states do not have major metropolitan areas.  They do have cities, an generally the cities show up as little blue islands if you expand the map, but the cities do not dominate those states.

In a city the benefits of Government are most evident.  They may not be as effective as people would want but if you consider the anarchy that would occur in the absence of Government you realize how needed it is.

In the country you can imagine a world without Government, although they generally depend on it more than they realize.

Nevertheless, less Government is appealing and certainly the appeal of lower taxes attracts many.

Its fairly easy for them to believe that a lot of the taxes they pay end up subsidizing undeserving people in those very cities, although the statistics show a different story.

The states that get back less than they pay to the Federal Government are mostly those blue states. You can see the numbers in the article I linked to.

States Net Benefit

The idea that big Government is mostly benefitting the undeserving is of course a myth that is perpetrated.

It really doesn't.

Medicare For All Costs

There have been a number of articles recently and some misguided statements by proponents on both sides about the cost and implementation of "Medicare for All" or publicly provided health insurance.

It would be expensive, but mathematically it wouldn't require new money, just a switch form privately funded to publicly funded.

How that would happen is the real problem, if in fact we even see it proposed seriously as opposed to a talking point by certain politicians.

To be clear, the cost of health care reflects the cost of health services being provided.  Currently most is provided under private insurance plans which are obtained in any number of ways.

Ultimately this cost might rise if more people get covered or it might decrease if the preventive care leads to earlier detection and less late intervention.

That's a matter that can be argued but, the switch from private to public funding wouldn't have a particular impact on overall costs, although of course the cost would show up as a Government expense.

As a reference point the United States has the highest per capita health care costs of any country although Switzerland is close, per the World Health depending of how you value the currencies.

The cost has been going up but it is going up partly because of inflation but also partly because new
 and improved technology has been introduced.

By most measures health outcomes do not correspond to the high cost, not that they are bad, but in many measures we are relatively average.  Of course because of our profit model, we attract some of the very best specialists in every discipline if, in fact, you can afford them.

The point is unless we are increasing this per capita cost, the total cost will not go up.  It's only a matter of how we pay for it.

Government Distrust

One of the things that has always been somewhat confusing about the American democracy is how many people think the Government is their enemy.

This tracks back to our earliest days when mistrust of the Government led to the Bill of Rights, a protection from the Government oppressing us.

If we are a Government of the people, why so much mistrust?

Governments in general tend to restrict what you can do, at least the way we perceive it.

We tend to forget that without Government, a lot of things we take for granted would be problematic.

For example, we all know that the various parts of the Government provide law enforcement, which, assuming you are law abiding, is a positive thing.

The problem generally is that the Government protects the many, who take it for granted, while making the few toe the line.

So a business owner told by OSHA that he has to incur costs for the safety of his workers is not going to be happy, and probably his workers won't care or may feel their jobs are being threatened.

Food processors like to stamp their products as Government approved, but they don't like when the Government costs them money.

Almost all of us, at least those who work, feel some pain from the payroll deductions to pay for all this, and inherently feel we pay too much, even thought we don't actually pay the full costs.

The point I am making is that the benefits of Government are spread over a large number, in effect making it almost invisible, while enforcement is much more targeted.

We pay too much and get too little and every so often the Government bothers us, making us get permits, or licenses, or possibly giving us a ticket or even arresting us.

We could do without it, except of course without it there would be anarchy.

Its just so annoying.

Wicked Circle

There is an irrational fear in this country that the liberal Government wants to raise taxes and give benefits to their supporters, who aren't by the way "real" Americans.

Real Americans in this scenario are church going white people who probably don't live on the coast.

Now as far as increasing taxes, most of the increases people see are state and local taxes, since the federal tax rates have not increased in quite a while, if you ignore the latest round of tariffs ordered by the dontard.

Still, you do hear talk from some democrats that we need to increase taxes on our wealthier individuals in order to reduce the deficit, fund social security and pay our bills.

Assuming that paying our bills is something of an American value we have to figure out a way to do it.

The only real choices would be to increase the Government income or reduce its spending.

We would all prefer to see the spending reduced until we see what is being reduced.

The big pots of money go to areas we don't want to cut, like defense and social security and medicare.

Almost everything else isn't going to be enough and some of those program are quite important to many of us.

We also face an increasing bill for the interest on our debt that is only going up as time passes.

Increasing income can be done by increasing growth, since taxes would go up.

Of course a recession would reduce Government income greatly while forcing up spending.

Right now there is no real plan to eliminate the deficit, nor a spending reduction plan that has any real hope of success.

So we borrow tremendous amounts each year while reducing taxes on the wealthy who can then use that money to buy interest bearing bonds.

Government Ponzi?

Socialism

Socialism has been one of the most abused words in the English language, partly because it has become closely associated with communism.

However the simplest definition of socialism is the idea that society as a whole should be the primary concern of our policies.

Capitalism, another word for individualism, focuses on the benefit to the individual instead of the group.

It should also be noted that it doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation.

Every society and Government has to be concerned with society as a whole, or it wouldn't function.

The interests of the individual and the interests of society are not generally in conflict, however at times they are.

Generally it involves control of resources and how those resources are distributed.

In general we are a country that believe in capitalism in that we respect individual property and the right to amass wealth.

The general argument here is that it promotes progress and therefore ultimately better opportunities for all.

Wealth is in fact a proven motivator, but of course on might wonder if it is the only one.

The other issue concerns social welfare, a non-economic form of socialism.

Should health care be provided to all or just a few?

We see great disparities in wealth in this country and we see great disparities in quality of life.

Should some of our elderly be forced to scrape by, eating cat food to save a few pennies, unable to afford medication or should society take care of them?

Many of us who support economic rewards also feel that we need to improve our social welfare programs.

Its recognition that all people are created equal, although not so much in America.

Taxes

Are taxes too high?

Well they aren't high enough to pay all our bills so we have to borrow and add to the national debt every month.

Some like to argue that we should spend less, but of course besides the often cited waste and abuse there is little agreement on what to cut.

The biggest components of our budget are tied up in what we call entitlements and defense with a big component for interest on the debt.

After those three things we have all the rest which is somewhere under $500 billion.  The deficit is almost twice that.  The link below gives more details.

Budget breakdown

One big problem we face is that our nation has gotten older.  The best way to pay for entitlements is to have enough young workers paying taxes to cover the outlays for retirement and Medicare.

We don't as the baby boom generation ages and the number of births decreases.

This trend is going to continue to force larger deficits every year unless we take steps to increase income or reduce payments (a suicidal political issue).

We are not going to reduce defense it seems and the rest of the budget is not enough so the simple answer is tax revenue is too low.

The two ways to increase tax revenue is to grow the economy or increase taxes.

Growing the economy sounds good, seems like everyone will benefit, but remember our tax system is primarily an income tax, so you have to grow worker's income to get more taxes, especially since we are reducing the corporate tax rates.

Where are the workers?

Unemployment has been extremely low so the only way to increase worker income is through paying the workers we have more.  Its clear that's not going to happen to the degree or level we would need to raise tax revenues by 25% or so.

Of course mandating raises of that amount for everyone sounds good to most people, but it is likely to lead to more automation and is opposed by our business dominated Government.

Immigration was a source of additional workers, but we have an anti-immigration government that is restricting it.

We are living on borrowed time and money.

Tariffs are just Taxes with a Different Name

When you impose a tariff on an imported article, its only paid if the item is, well, imported.

Its only going to get imported if it can be sold and assuming the seller doesn't intend to lose money, the sales price is going to include any tariff he has to pay.

This increase in price is therefore paid by whoever actually buys the item, and clearly that person in this scenario is an American resident, since the tariff only applies to items imported here.

You might say you can avoid the tariff by buying a domestic item, and that is true if a domestic item is available and assuming the price is competitive.

Of course the tariff does make it easier for the domestic supplier to compete, at least here, but it doesn't help them in other markets.

So you would still be paying more, but it would be an inefficiency charge, not a tariff.

Still its effectively a commerce tax taking money our of your pocket and putting it into an inefficient manufacturer.

I'm generally opposed to tariffs since they prevent the markets from being efficient but I do understand that they might have a place in domestic policy to encourage a particular sector or give it a chance to mature, temporarily.

Of course the tariffs being imposed now, in the name of national security, are simply designed to pander to certain business owners who can't compete on their own.

This is going to create a few jobs, but as the other nations retaliate and we lose sales and market share in markets such as China, we will lose far more jobs than we gain.

So will everyone else.

A real lose-lose strategy.

Spending Priorities

Watching the dontard at the G7 gives some clear signs that American leadership in most spheres is on the decline.

Unfortunately, instead of using this to help the country by reducing the amount we spend on defending other countries he is trying to increase defense spending because it is popular with some of his supporters.

I'm not advocating for a weak defense, just a smarter one that protects our country and focuses on where we need to focus.

One of the things to understand about defense spending is that it is in many ways a type of stimulus to some companies, which gets great support in congress because it creates jobs in their districts.

We build state of the art weapons that are unlikely to be used in an actual conflict.

We have military all over the globe including Korea, the middle east, Europe and Africa, to contain our enemies.

This spawns a defense industry which has been raking in record profits with no end in sight.

Instead of simply spending billions on weapons we probably don't need we should evaluate the actual threats to this country and our allies and decide on an affordable plan.

I disagree with a lot of what the dontard says and does, but it is time that our allies picked up more of the cost of defending themselves instead of us.  They are able to provide all their citizens with health care while we pay for weapons and men to protect them.

We need to focus our funds where they help the citizens of this country while staying strong.

We have technology now that can provide protection while reducing the risk to our people with drones and other technology.

We have to get smart about where the money we borrow gets spent.

Debt, it will eventually bite us.

Its one of the things that we accept but don't like, taxes.

Running on a platform that promises to reduce taxes is almost always better than using common sense and saying you might have to raise taxes.

Taxes are too high is the most common comment people make about them but what should we cut is the general problem.

So we cut taxes and increase spending, which is after all a recipe for ultimate disaster.

The real question should be what do we want and how are we paying for it?

The Government is unable to meet its annual obligations and has to borrow every year just to keep running.

To fix this you need either more income or less expenses or a mixture of both.

You might argue that we should eliminate waste, fraud and become more efficient, and we should, but that is not solving the budget problem.

We are also not solving it by ignoring the big ticket items and reducing small (at least by Government standards) programs.

This is complicated by the sacred cows we have, the untouchables, so to speak.

I don't want to ignore growth, since growth reduces certain expenditures and increases taxes without increasing the tax rate.  However we are not going to see enough growth to fix our problem, and eventually, our problem is going to have a negative impact on growth.

We keep kicking this problem down the road, supported by low interest rates and general confidence that we will pay our loans.

Both of those facts can change fairly quickly and with potentially disastrous results.

We either address the issue of where to spend our income or we face significant economic disruption, sooner or later.

Tariffs are Taxes

Well the dontard has the ability, at least for now, to impose tariffs depending I guess on his latest mood.

Yesterday he attacked China and targeted areas that we are just not likely to compete in, therefore doing one of two things.

Either a lot of technology prices will have price increases or the manufacturers will find another low price country to shift to.

Now the exact list of the items the tariffs apply to isn't published yet but the idea that somehow we are suddenly going to find people willing to do the type of work involved for competitive wages is pretty unlikely.

Manufacturers are unlikely to even try.

So the most likely outcome is that whatever tariffs are collected will simply increase some prices.

One area on the list that might help a bit is tariffs on solar panels which is an industry that has a growth future, although not favored by the dontard.

China has imposed a few retaliatory tariffs and the market has dropped significantly and looks to go down some more.

Trade wars lead to less jobs overall as they increase prices and reduce demand.

Naturally as in everything there are some winners but more losers.  The proponents will point to the winners, if any in this case, and cite it as a success, ignoring the losers for sake of their argument.

As bad as the recent tax law was, it would in the short term produce some jobs as prices would in fact decline a bit increasing some demand.  However the problem there is that the up side for demand isn't as great as the down side as we are near full employment.

The problem that actually exists in this country is that in the old manufacturing heartland, high paying jobs have been replaced with lower paying jobs.  Trying to compete with China on the low end isn't going to do anything for that.

Impact of Tax Manipulation

It is certainly possible that we will see a tax bill passed to appease big business, not because it is considered wonderful, but because it is needed so Republicans can say they got something done.

The bill itself is clearly not of much benefit to anyone not already fairly wealthy although it does throw the masses a few bones.  Of course the real impact won't be felt until people file their 2018 tax returns, well after the midterms and before that many individuals might actually see small increases in take home pay as the tax rates get reduced.

The vast majority of Americans today actually use the tax system as sort of a forced saving device where what the pay every pay period is a little too high resulting in a refund when they file their taxes.

Having that little more in you pay check may seem fine until you find out the usual refund from personal deductions and other things has vanished.

As I said, the details are still vague and we know the benefit to low and middle class people is almost nothing, with increases likely in many States that have high taxes, but its simply impossible to do all the math until the bill is actually finalized and conferenced.

That's not going to stop our dotard talking about how it doesn't help people like him (it does) and how it is all aimed at the middle class (it isn't). 

We do know it is going to be a bonanza for business and wealthy individuals and that it will significantly increase the debt.  The only hope would be that it stimulates the economy so much that the increase economic activity offsets the expenses.  However, considering the looming worker shortage and the current level of activity, the chances of that are pretty slim.

More likely to have the opposite effect, as any excess can be used to buy down debt as the Fed increases the discount rate. 

Let's hope not.

Paying their Debt

The monkey house passed a "tax reform" bill that manages to pay their owners significant amounts by taking it from the rest of us either now or in the future.

The argument that this is going to be good for the economy is so shaky that I find it hard to believe any of them believe it, but being monkeys they might.

Now attention turns to the Senate where we will see if they can pass something that enables the two bills to go to conference.

I realize that we have seen the wealthy take over the Government via money and they have gotten people elected who are only concerned about keeping the donations flowing.

I would have thought that the American people would realize what was happening, but when you realize all the news most people absorb has to be in short soundbites or headlines, it is too easy to convince enough of the uninformed to vote for a monkey.

We will get you a good paying job, although you have no skills and just a rudimentary education.

We guarantee your children will be no more educated than you are by privatizing our schools and letting our donors make money for not educating them.

In fact we will make sure the people who donate to us can privatize more and more things so that a hefty percentage of the taxes get to them so they can donate some to us.

You live in a state where they supply public services?  Well stop indirectly subsidizing you socialists by double taxing you.

It doesn't matter to us as long as we get enough donations to run TV ads telling you we are going to make your life better, but have a gun.

You are addicted to opioids?  Well we are defunding programs that could help you but just vote for us and we will take care of you.

We are gong to strip your pension and disability benefits but you can buy a gun.

It's the best retirement plan we can think of.

Saturday Musings

So Hollywood is basically a den of iniquity, who'd of thunk it?

A lot of this is going to be he said she said or more she said he denied sort of stuff.  I'm sure a lot of it happened but I'm not sure anyone can really determine what actually happened.

Well the dotard is in Asia, good chance he might provoke a war.

Republicans are dragging out every silly accusation against Hillary, which, isn't of much concern to anyone really except foxy news and diehard dotardists and second doesn't have the Russian trolls repeating it over and over again.

I don't know if there's much chance the tax cut will pass, something might, they are pretty desperate, but the odds of an average American getting a break are pretty slim.

I think they could easily replace the business tax with a value added tax but that's too complex for this bunch.

There is a simple fact that people need to understand, people pay all the taxes.  Now some of it is charged to business who add it to the prices they charge us, some of it is charged direct or on property but we pay all of it.  That includes all the foreign taxes built into the prices of their products, so if you drive a German auto you are subsidizing the German social programs.

Think we need an investigation into Australian millionaires interfering in American politics.

I was just in Virginia trying to avoid the ads for the gubernatorial race, but it was hard to do.  Some of them are so over the top I can't believe people believe them, but evidence shows that they do.  Sad really.

The political discourse in this country has really deteriorated or maybe its just more noticeable.  Maybe we need better informed voters.

The administration has issued a scientific analysis the attributes climate change to human behavior, although they individually have tried to deny it.  You can't twist science the way you can politics.

Do we get an extra hour of sleep or get back the one they took from us in the Spring?  I've lost track.

Taxes and the Economy

The argument for cutting taxes and increasing the debt is that the economy will grow so much that in the end the taxes collected from everybody working will reduce outflows and increase inflows, actually reducing the debt.

Take a simple example.  If someone is getting unemployment insurance and not paying taxes but because the economy grows so much he gets off unemployment and starts paying taxes, he offsets some of the reductions.

Two things are required for this to happen though, there have to be people who are getting benefits who will go back to work when jobs are available.

There is no real evidence to support this considering the unemployment rate is so low and companies are complaining about the lack of skilled workers.

The other thing that has to happen is that the tax breaks result in more jobs.

This is pretty clearly not the case for large well established businesses which have excess capital already and are not increasing production, at least no in any great degree.

There could be a certain number of jobs that get created here if the math makes it more profitable to build here because of the cuts.

The question isn't about a few jobs here and there but about a number of jobs to reduce our unemployment rate.

That is a problem since we are already at full employment.

Small businesses on the other hand might expand but the problem is still that the excess workers aren't there.

We are seeing the baby boomers reach retirement age and beginning to draw social security and Medicare.  Tax cuts aren't going to make them younger and once they can actually afford to retire unlikely to send them back into the workforce.

So unless we allow substantial immigration, there aren't enough workers, and I don't need to discuss the immigration thing here.

So tax cuts will help some people buy groceries or pay for health care but most of it will benefit people who already have savings and investments.

They can donate some to their favorite monkey..

Budget Follies

Nobody I know likes taxes, really, although I do know people who understand paying taxes is something we need to do to pay our countries bills.

It sees that a lot of people aren't aware of that so they simply want the taxes cut and the bills paid, well magically I guess.

If I sit down to discuss my household budget there is a general understanding that the amount of money coming in has to equal the money going out in most instances.

Sometimes of course you might have to borrow to pay for something big, like a house or a car so this becomes the household debt which results in monthly payments I have to make.

So my budget includes all the things I have to pay, including debt payments and things I would like to have which I don't have to buy.

At the end of the day I want these numbers to be less than the cash I bring in.

This results in a nest egg that I can use for retirement or special things.

However if I was to find out that I was going to get less cash each month, I would have to adjust, either by taking money our of that "nest egg", borrowing or reducing spending.  If I was to decide to just go ahead and spend more it would be a reckless maneuver.

The Government isn't very different, it has income, mostly taxes, it has mandatory payments, mostly what are called entitlements and debt and it has discretionary spending.

We tend to view defense spending as required spending but while veterans benefits are, defense spending is actually discretionary.  We could spend less and in fact the last time we had a budget surplus it was to some extent related to the reduction in defense spending after the cold war ended.

Now we spend more than we take in and the situation isn't likely to get better.  Some of this is driven by our aging population and the benefits we owe them and some of it goes back to the early days of the last republican administration.

When it started the country was running a surplus and two things happened.  A tax cut was passed and then the war on terror broke out and we started spending increased amounts in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots.

We quickly went back to deficits and have been there ever since.  luckily for us the Fed has suppressed interest rates to make the debt a bit more affordable, but it still consumes more and more of the budget each year.

Sane people would look at this and conclude we need more revenue, or less spending.

That's what sane people would do, but our representatives have decided its time to increase defense spending, increase infrastructure spending and cut revenue, taxes.

Since that is the opposite of what sane people would do, I guess the only real conclusion we can draw is that the people doing it are insane.

This is our friendly deficit loving republican party.

Wait they are increasing usage fees at the national parks, that's the ticket.