Deficit Panel Pushes Cuts

The Leaders of a White House commission on deficit spending laid out a new proposal of austerity to reduce the federal budget deficit through target reductions in a variety of areas including: social security benefits, middle class tax breaks, and defense spending. Also included, would be the elimination of the deduction of home mortgage interest. Capitol gains and dividends would be taxed at the higher rates now levied on wage income.

Corporate tax would be reduced from a current thirty five percent rate to as low as twenty six percent while a broad array of deductions would be eliminated. The research and development tax credit would be made permanent. While the U.S. works in developing its plan to reduce the budget deficit, Europe is struggling to contain its own debt crisis.

Last spring it was the Greek government in crisis that received one hundred and ten billion aid package from the European union and the international monetary fund. Present fears are that the newest debt crisis in Ireland could spread to Portugal and Spain. Axel Weber, President of the German Bundes Bank, said that the cost of bailing out Ireland along with Portugal and Spain could exceed the lending power that European leaders built into the seven hundred and fifty billion, three year plan that was laid out after the initial one hundred ten billion bailout of Greece.

The economic rescue plan designed by the European union and negotiated earlier with Greece and recently with Ireland included budgets framed around severe austerity measures coupled with a variety of tax increases. The result with Greece and recently in Ireland has been violent confrontations in the streets. Over time, the lack of proper stewardship resulted in very painful mandatory measures of austerity along with increased taxes and other expenses.

In Jesus’ parable in Luke Chapter 16, the unrighteous steward was riddled with overwhelming debt, but deemed righteous when he sought to obtain debt reduction. Ultimately, however, the Lord wants more for his people than just a little debt relief. He says in Duet. 28, 9-13, “The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways.

And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee. And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shall not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them.”

The question one might ask is how do we become the head and not the tail, the lender and not the borrower? The steward in Luke 16 initially was the tail in that he was over his head in debt and definitely not in control of his situation. When he developed a plan (budget) and began debt reduction, he took control and consequently became the head.

When someone develops a budget and lives beneath their means, they are positioned to be a saver. With savings, they in turn can be a lender to banks in the form of certificates of deposit, and corporation and government municipalities in the form of stocks and bonds. Jesus said in the parable in Luke 16:11, “If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?”

When we become the head and not the tail, the lender and not the borrower, we truly can become righteous stewards demonstrating stalwart faith in support of the work of God….moving ahead in search of the true riches in His Kingdom.