Final Speech- Mark O'Brien

Up until the Great Depression the United States government took the Laissez-faire approach to the market which means that they didn't intervene.  Once the Great Depression hit Keynesian Economics were adopted.  This meant that the government managed the economy.  The government should regulate the economy when needed, but allow a free market when possible.  The big debate comes when taking about when the government stepping in is needed.  The Economic policies our country deal with how the government makes and spends money.  Every year the President decides on a federal budget for the year and submits it to Congress.  They can either approve or deny it.  Keeping in mind that our country is over 18 trillion dollars in debt, the budget for 2014 was 3.5 trillion and is now 4.6 because just last week congress had to approve a budget extension.  The largest amount of government spending goes to social programs such as welfare, and medicare.  The revenue in 2014 is 3.02 trillion, which mainly comes from taxes.  Why if we are so far in debt do we keep spending more money than we have? There are two main sides of the economic debate.  Earlier i explained laissez-faire and Keynesian economics.  Republicans view is that laissez faire is the better of the two, and Democrats side with Keynesian economics.  On one hand if you have a government that has a completely hands off approach to the market, there tends to be greater division of classes meaning that some people are very rich and the rest are tremendously poor.  On the other if the government is controlling all of the money there isn't much freedom for the people to conduct business, people cant  succeed and fail on their own. Also if the government fails the entire country is thrown into poverty.  I have thought long and hard and ultimately come up with an idea that government officials today seem to find repulsive. A solution.  I propose that a balanced budget amendment is added to the constitution.  For those of you who don't know a balanced budget means that an entity cant spend more than it makes, which our government has been doing all but 4 years since 1970.  However, this would not be required during times of war.  One way the government could achieve this goal is by implementing an “if…then” approach to tax cuts.  5.9% of the American population is unemployed. If a business employed a certain amour of people proportional to the company size and value, then they will receive a tax cut.  This is a more efficient form of trickle down economics which is the idea that tax breaks to businesses and those at upper income levels benefit the poor because there is more money going towards productivity and business growth resulting in businesses hiring more people.  A big problem that my If then system solves is that when big businesses got these tax cuts during the bush administration there was nothing to hold them accountable, so in many cases the people higher up in the company just received large bonuses instead of that money going to hire more people and ultimately grow the business.  Now with my system those companies are forced to employ people to receive the tax cuts.  The unemployment rate would drop, and the government wouldn't have to spend as much money on social programs like welfare.  Also the recently employed would be making money and as a result paying taxes. This would bring in enough money to the government to reach a budget surplus each year.  We would be steadily eating away at the national debt and eventually get back to even.  A balanced budget can be achieved, but order to do so as a country we need to hold ourselves accountable in the form of an amendment and “if then” tax cuts. Thank you.

Work Cited

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"How the Government Measures Unemployment." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2014