{"id":1721,"date":"2013-01-07T16:25:15","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T23:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/?p=1721"},"modified":"2013-01-07T16:25:15","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T23:25:15","slug":"what-do-you-think-we-should-do-about-our-national-budget-deficit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithwalkers\/2013\/01\/what-do-you-think-we-should-do-about-our-national-budget-deficit\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do You Think We Should Do about Our National Budget Deficit?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>We all mostly agree that running deficits of over a trillion dollars each year can\u2019t be good. Even the\u00a0more liberal amongst us aren\u2019t thrilled about it. And I know our kids aren\u2019t going to be happy once they find out about it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/files\/2013\/01\/USbudgetDeficitChart.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1722\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/files\/2013\/01\/USbudgetDeficitChart.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"567\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Maybe you agree <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/2013\/01\/the-faithwalkers-daily-jan-7-california-yoga-classes-our-spending-addiction-kansas-sperm-donor\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\">with me and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that we have a spending addiction<\/a>. Or maybe <a href=\"http:\/\/nation.foxnews.com\/fiscal-cliff\/2013\/01\/02\/obama-we-still-need-raise-taxes-more-after-cliff-deal\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">you agree with President Obama <\/a>that we\u00a0need to raise taxes more. Maybe both.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/files\/2013\/01\/031212_US_Monthly_Budget_Statement_February_body_Chart_4.png\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1723\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/files\/2013\/01\/031212_US_Monthly_Budget_Statement_February_body_Chart_4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"579\" height=\"339\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But seriously, if it were up to you, what would you do about it. Maybe it would help to think in terms of this scenario:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If you bumped into\u00a0your congressperson today at the grocery store and he asked for your input on the national budget deficit, what would you say? You\u2019d only have few minutes, so it would have to be concise and memorable because she didn\u2019t bring any paper to jot down your remarks. And the cashier is waiting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Call it crowd-sourcing,\u00a0if you will, but I find I learn best when in conversation with others. Maybe you do to. Even if we don\u2019t always agree.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>So, if you only had a minute or two, what would you tell your congressperson when he or she asked, \u201cWhat do you think we should do about our national budget deficit?\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We all mostly agree that running deficits of over a trillion dollars each year can\u2019t be good. Even the\u00a0more liberal amongst us aren\u2019t thrilled about it. And I know our kids aren\u2019t going to be happy once they find out about it. Maybe you agree with me and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-1721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-politics","tag-national-budget-deficit"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What Do You Think We Should Do about Our National Budget Deficit?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We all mostly agree that running deficits of over a trillion dollars each year can&#039;t be good. 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Even the\u00a0more liberal amongst us aren&#039;t thrilled about it.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithwalkers\/2013\/01\/what-do-you-think-we-should-do-about-our-national-budget-deficit\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FaithWalkers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-07T23:25:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/billintheblank\/files\/2013\/01\/USbudgetDeficitChart.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Bill Blankschaen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Bill Blankschaen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithwalkers\/2013\/01\/what-do-you-think-we-should-do-about-our-national-budget-deficit\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithwalkers\/2013\/01\/what-do-you-think-we-should-do-about-our-national-budget-deficit\/\",\"name\":\"What Do You Think We Should Do about Our National Budget Deficit?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithwalkers\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-01-07T23:25:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-01-07T23:25:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/faithwalkers\/#\/schema\/person\/5560c0a98f542f838152bf4905b03dcb\"},\"description\":\"We all mostly agree that running deficits of over a trillion dollars each year can't be good. 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