After all, whether you are “rich” or just “working class” you had to work to earn that tax money and it’s unfair for the Government to waste it on earmarks and other giveaways.

Our taxes should be used to strenghten our country and benefit our citizens.

1) Get the President to put economics and money management courses in the schools, K-12. Obviously the major bent should be toward personal finance and sustainability of the economy and saving for retirement. Don’t spend what you can’t afford! (government should follow this too!)
3) Make science and math courses extremely important by focusing on actual experiments and real world situations and a little less on theory – Kids need to see and do interesting things to stay interested!! Too much theory and no practical uses make the subjects boring – we need a generation to embrace them and become leaders in science to propel us forward!
2) Freeze the tax rates – Don’t cut or raise them. This will give stability to the economy and the government time to evaluate its budget in more detail than has ever been done.
3) Cut spending, balance the budget! This is most important – budget must be balanced!! #1 Priority and won’t be painless.
4) Pay down debt with any budget surpluses – This will give the government raises in subsequent years with much lower interest payments on the debt, and that money can then go toward increasing government spending, without actually increasing government spending… (money just gets spent on useful things instead of interest payments).
5) Government spending should only increase with the rate of inflation – Why should government get bigger bonuses than those of us on main street? We have to live within our means, and so should the government. Government SHOULD be able to use some of the extra interest payment savings (from paying off the debt) to increase spending (but technically government spending isn’t increased, we just pay less interest and put more toward real things) – we know politicians love to spend, so we have to give them a bit to play around with – at least they will have earned it!
6)The government already spends a lot of money and they can take an extremely close look at each dollar being spent and make it more efficient – open up bidding for government contracts and make the details public (on stuff that isn’t sensitive info, obviously), etc.
7) Don’t promise new spending – promise to change the way government spends what it has.
Introduce legislation that gives 401ks and other tax deferral programs a fixed tax rate no matter what year in the future people take their money out – People need to know taxes won’t go up 2 or 3 fold on this money – Why would you defer tax if you think taxes are going to rise significantly in the future?
9) Start a massive program to open up the Space Frontier economically. We will need to create new ways to get to space efficiently – This is vital to world security and peace. Our goal should be to create a colony on the moon, with our eyes set to other planets as well for small colonies – and to mine some of these planets for valuable resources.
10) Open up Space by getting rid of any regulation that prevents regular folks and businesses from launching into space. Provide incentives to companies that do research and manufacturing of things to get us to Space and on any business buying these items. Incentives should be used – I don’t want government to pick and choose companies that will become leaders in space, but to just encourage the entire economy to compete and get us there with massive incentives for consumers and businesses buying any technology. We need something really dramatic while still not picking and choosing winners… let the economy decide who wins, we just want to encourage the economy to shift its focus to space and sustainable energy instead of war and oil.
11) Provide massive incentives to people purchasing alternative energy (including new vehicles that make use of alternative energy). Ethanol and bio-diesel should be considered alternatives as should solar, wind, wave, geothermal, fusion, etc, etc, etc). This may help us balance the trade deficit!
12) Alter accredited investor rules that prevent regular folks from investing in local businesses and communities. Regular folks should be allowed to gain access to this type of investment, but the company should still have to prove it’s no scam with some easy regulations to protect investors. I just don’t agree with NOT allowing investors to invest in an entire area of OUR OWN economy!
13) Introduce regulations of banking industry that make lending stricter – If you can’t afford the loan, you won’t get it. It is merely to protect consumers.

Ultimately, the two major focuses should be on creating an environment where alternative energy and Space are the focus on the economy of the world. We want to change the entire focus of the planet from warring with each other over disagreements, to looking forward to new frontiers of Space and the technology that comes with it. Living sustainable in space would require technologies that would help many 3rd world nations as well, such as growing of food using technology, no matter where you live, and alternative energy that is sustainable. We must look forward.

Work ethic matters, but so does where we start. There are poor people who work hard, and there are rich people who don’t. But there’s also the opposite and plenty of people in between. We need to remember that, and all of us, no matter how much wealth we have or don’t have, need to remember not to make assumptions about a person’s willingness to work based on what they have.

@Goldenrail: Well at least you know what you don’t know, which is half the battle and more than I can say for most members of Congress. They each seem to think they are experts in everything which is why committee hearings are nothing more than speech opportunities for the members.

@ Kevin – Wealth envy is an interesting concept because wealth is a tool but not necessarily a state of contentment. The non-wealthy don’t seem to get that.

@ Sekai – I absolutely agree with you about folks who are poor because they have been denied opportunities to improve themselves. However, with all of the resources (including federal, state, and local programs) available, the percentage of poor people in that category is very low. Many more are poor because of bad choices in life.