Eliminate All Federal Subsidies

As of 2018, there are over 2,200 Federal subsidies and we've been adding about 100 new ones each year recently. They cost hundreds of billions of dollars every year – the lowest estimate I've seen is 400 billion dollars a year; the highest estimate is one trillion dollars a year. Elimination of all Federal subsidies would balance the budget and perhaps provide surpluses to pay down our massive national debt. We need to do that now and make it permanent.

Subsidies are hidden in every government departmental budget so that there is no viable way to view all of them together with their annual costs. You can access a general list of them (again without costs) at this URL - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/catalog-of-federal-domestic-assistance-cfda.asp . Essentially, all of these subsidies amount to political bribes to help politicians get elected. All of them need to be eliminated. The largest subsidies, but not all subsidies, go to three major areas - state and local governments to help with the hiring of police and teachers plus other “needs”, farmers, and hundreds of charities. Let's examine each:

State and local governments, by law, must balance their budgets. We should never have given up this needed practice, of forcing state and local politicians to actually make the tough spending and revenue decisions to accomplish a balanced budget that they were elected to do, by allowing them to “out source” some of their spending decisions to the Federal government which is allowed to work without a balanced budget. Most of these subsidies are spent on our largest cities who have managed to avoid the tough decisions on budget balancing. No more. Over a 5 year period, in order to give them sufficient time to adjust their finances, reduce these subsidies by 20% a year, so that they are zero at the end of 5 years.

The average wealth of farmers is two million dollars each. The Federal government should not be subsidizing multi-millionaires. However, the Agricultural subsidy program is so large, that it cannot be withdrawn in one year without creating burdensome chaos. Therefore, cut these subsidies 20% a year to reach zero in 5 years, allowing farmers ample time to adjust to market realities.

Fortunately, most of the hundreds of charities subsidized by the Federal government only cover 10% or less of their annual budgets by these subsidies. Charities should be and are supported by people and businesses, and never should be supported by government. When government supports charities, it is telling all of us individual tax payers that no matter how much you gave to charity, even if it was 10% or more, it was not enough. Therefore, the Federal government is taxing us higher than it otherwise would so that it can force us to give even more to charity. That is just unfair and wrong for government to do to taxpayers. Eliminate all Federal subsidies to charities and do it immediately.

Finally, eliminate every other Federal subsidy immediately.

For each of the 2,200+ Federal subsidies, now growing at 100 new ones per year and costing hundreds of billions of dollars each year, there are legions of defendants and lobbyists for these "free" goodies from government. Meanwhile, our 20 trillion dollar Federal debt ($60,000 for each man, woman, and child in America) keeps growing. We can't afford these politically motivated subsidies and need to eliminate all of them. Yet, the liars who defend these subsidies try to distract us from the real problem by promoting the false concept that cutting government spending means deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Defense, etc. No, we don't have to cut any of them. We have to just cut the Federal subsidies which are deliberately put in every government departmental budget to hide them from American citizens and make it difficult to find and analyze them in total. Simply add a single departmental budget for all these subsidies, show what they all combined cost now and cost in the past, and then re-state all the other Federal departmental budgets, including their cost history, without these subsidies in them so that we know the true costs of these programs without irrelevant subsidies.

Marriage – Keeping the Romance Alive

Marriage always starts in romance. There's the romantic steps of courtship, the wedding, and the honeymoon. Of necessity, marriage also immediately evolves into a business – income earned, expenses, and yes, profit or loss (savings or debt or break-even). It is important for that marital “business” to be conducted as an equal partnership on major business decisions (housing, cars, furniture, vacations, etc.) and not into a boss-employee type of relationship if the romance is to stay alive. There is no “my money” and “your money”. There is only “our money”.

Most marriages involve the creation of children which is about a 20 year obligation, often more, on each child created. Though not a business, raising children requires a great amount of time, expense, and effort that, depending on how performed, can either enhance romance (which it should) or take away from it (which it shouldn't). Yes, children reduce the amount of private, personal time together for parents, but the love for your children is or should be a love that reinforces your own love for each other as you each, separately and also together, as the need or opportunity rises or is deliberately planned and created, make efforts to attend to your children's needs and aspirations.

Given the business needs and the children needs of marriages, which of necessity consume huge amounts of time, it is easy for romance to take a back seat and/or for “irritations” between husbands and wives to occur. The challenge is to keep the romance alive and thriving. There are many ways to achieve this goal. Here are just a few:

• Always kiss and/or hug each other when you wake up, go to bed, or leave your home for any reason (work, shopping, etc.). Say the words “I love you” and mean it frequently.

• Kiss each other for no reason during your waking hours. For example, sometimes when passing by your spouse in your home for any reason, such as something as simple as getting up to go to the kitchen for a bite to eat while watching TV, divert for a few seconds and kiss your spouse and say I love you and mean it.

• Don't have the time nor inclination for sex every time you go to bed or wake up in the morning (normal), then just hug or hold each other for a few minutes at least a couple of times each week as time permits.

• Get ticked off at your spouse for whatever reason (going to happen occasionally), remember all the reasons you love him or her, and keep your voice low. May not always work because emotions come out sometimes before the brain kicks in gear, so if on the receiving end of a spousal outburt against you, resist the natural inclination to yell back. Speak softly instead. There is no “winning” of spousal disagreements by dominating or bullying your spouse through yelling. Such actions are a marital loss for both people

• Small things count too. For example, when walking from the car together to go to a store, restaurant, or movie, take that opportunity to hold each other's hands. Such simple gestures reinforce the romance, as touch is a very powerful sensory feeling.

• There will be times when you cannot agree on significantly important matters such as what house or car to buy, a child's disciplinary action, important spending and savings decisions, etc.. That is “normal”. There is usually no right or wrong involved in these disagreements. Treat each other's differences with respect and make an effort to understand why your spouse feels the way he/she does. That is much more important than the actual decision ultimately made. Sometimes these disagreements may need to be “tabled” and discussed at a later date when both of you are less emotional.

• When your spouse is sick or tired or just not feeling right, help out however you can even if it means going beyond what normally has been each other's “chores”. Tell each other you love them. The person being helped should say thank you to their spouse either then or when feeling better.

• Stay sober, faithful, and (illegal) drug free at all times.