Spending Priorities and the Budget

Americans tend to be fair people. But right now there is populist anger that has not stopped. It started before the 2016 elections and remains a critical factor in 2020. Many Americans are on the edge. This is an economic predicament where people do not have $500 dollars if there is an emergency. Many are working two and three jobs because the rent is very high, and good-paying union jobs are almost non-existent. While Wall Street continues to go up, the mainstream has to cope with homelessness, poor medical care, bad schools, crumbling infrastructure, and other issues.

If you have been on social media long enough, you have heard the complaints, why do we give foreign aid when we have (insert group here) starving in the streets? This comes from a deep frustration with our spending priorities, and a lack of understanding of the same budgetary process that has created this crisis. Foreign aid becomes an easy target, never mind this is like the pennies in your couch. Yes, you could find up to a few bucks, but they will not pay the rent. This is precisely the situation we find ourselves under. Americans across the spectrum demand we stop foreign aid, Israel is a favorite target, never mind it is hardly the only country receiving American largesse. Yet, all foreign aid combined adds up to the spare change we lost on the national sofa.

We need a change in our taxing and spending priorities. But in order to do that, we also need to understand what is going on?