Stop out of control government spending!

The Tea Party loves to complain that the government is spending too much money. While we are running a deficit, the deficit includes a LOT more information than just how much the government spends.

Having said that, to some extent I agree with the idea that our government spends too much money. The problem is that the austerity measures government agencies have undertaken are the absolute wrong way to go about making things better. An example of this is recent backlash against government employees.

Many complain that they make too much yet most lag behind their private sector counterparts and unlike the private industry public employees don't receive huge bonuses based on how much they have ripped off the general public. Additionally state and local employees like police, firefighters and teachers have seen a reduction of around 400,000 jobs over the last year while Federal employees have increased by around 82,000. Of those 82,000; 27,000 were in defense, 25,000 in veterans affairs, and 13,000 in homeland security. By supporting cuts in government spending we have made our homes and cities less safe and instead are using our tax dollars to defend the world.

Also consider that the largest increase in government spending over the past year was in the defense budget where spending increase by a little over $100 billion. Not only do we spend five times as much on defense as the next largest spending country (China) but our one year increase alone would rank as the second largest spending nation in the world (behind ourselves). The list would go like this:

US 2009 defense spending - $795 billion
US 2009-2010 increase of defense spending - $101 billion
China 2009 defense spending - $98 billion

Yes, we increased spending in one year by more than any other nation spends. This $101 billion increase also represents the largest increase in spending in the entire federal government budget. So yes, government spending is out of control but don't blame it on high government employee wages or earmarks. The fear mongering from the right and the insistence on being the world police are the reasons we have huge deficits. Unless we tax accordingly, we will never control our national debt until we reign in defense spending.