To raise or not to raise

Naturally, no one wants to have to pay taxes, but unfortunately those kinds of things are necessary for government on any scale to operate. So, when a public entity actually decides to lower taxes, that's most certainly a good thing, except when that tax money is sorely needed to fund one program or another.

Currently, President George Bush is wanting to push a massive tax cut through the House and the Senate. Even though the country is currently embroiled in a war on terror and military actions in two different countries, Bush says we can get along with those tax cuts anyway.

While the democrats are well known for raising taxes and the republicans are well known for lowering the tax rates put into place before them, for some reason whenever a republican comes out of office as the president the country is knee deep in debt. On the other side, sometimes when a democrat comes out of office, as Clinton did, we had a major surplus.

So what will happen, if recent history is the key, if Bush pushes his tax cuts through Congress? We will still have to pay for a war on many fronts? We will still have to overhaul the social security program, and we will still have to maintain other essential programs such as education and Medicare.

And now there is talk that senators are wanting to fund vigilante groups on the Texas/Mexico border. If these tax cuts pass, where will the money come from? Of course vigilante groups will probably never receive federal funding, but the possibility is still there.

The simple fact is there is never enough money to fund everything that the politicians want funded, and massive tax cuts will not bring enough money to fund these projects.

Raising taxes may also not be the answer, but it is better than allowing our country to fall into deeper debt because a politician wants to present a better image to the public.