Government Debt
Let's not pretend that bipartisanship is dead
Here in the United States we just went through an incredibly divisive election. Both sides did all they could to convince the populace that if the other side won, life as we know it would be over.
Looking at all of the vitriol and anger spewed into our lives it would be reasonable to conclude that the two sides just don’t get along.
That would be reasonable. But, incorrect.
The two sides work together really, really well. When they want to do so for short term gain.
According to Google, yesterday the Federal Government’s debt stood at 35.88 Trillion Dollars.
By the time you read this, it’ll be about 7 Billion more, because that is the approximate amount it is now growing each and every day of the year.
The Treasury Department reports that we now spend more servicing the interest on this debt than we do on our entire national defense. And if trends continue debt service will soon enough surpass the largest expense of all, Social Security.
This debt grows, every single day, and there are no serious efforts to stem that growth.
No one even talks about someday paying this debt down.
Without a course correction, the debt will continue to grow in size until our entire fiscal system collapses. In simple terms, our federal government is on a path to bankruptcy, and no one holding real power seems to care.
Ultimately, this is our fault.
It’s not the politician’s fault, or the bureaucrat’s fault, it is our fault as voters.
The situation is really, really simple.
We the voters want lots and lots and lots of “free” goods and services from the government. So we elect, and continually re-elect people to Congress who will keep the pipeline of “free” stuff flowing.
But, by the same token, we the voters want low taxes. So we elect, and continually re-elect people to Congress who will keep our taxes low.
If politics were rational, we would, through our elected representatives, decide what governmental goods and services we really needed, and how to fund those things. But, the world of politics is not rational, so that is not done.
Instead we will, at the ballot box, crush any elected official who tries to turn of the spigot of “free” stuff. And we will crush any elected official who tries to increase taxes enough to pay for all this “free” stuff.
So, our elected officials gaze at each other, share a wink or a nod, and decide to work together in a truly bipartisan manner.
The folks who want to significantly increase taxes set aside their plans to do so, and the folks who want to cut programs set aside their plans to do so.
They might still talk a good game for the TV cameras, but that’s all it is, talk.
Instead they just figure out what everybody wants. What the Republicans want, what the Democrats want, even what the lone Independent in the Senate wants, and they do it all.
With borrowed money.
Both sides are guilty. It does not matter who the President is, it does not matter what party controls Congress, however any of that might shake out, the debt increases.
And that’s a real scandal.
Because it is theft.
It is nothing but organized theft by the older generation, committed against the younger generation.
The Boomer generation, the people who started seriously accumulating this crushing debt will die before the collapse it causes. They will be in their graves before it must be paid back. Perhaps my generation, X, will be as well. But my three daughters won’t be. My two granddaughters won’t be.
Every single day of the year we are stealing 7 Billion dollars from my daughters, granddaughters, and all the rest of their generations.
That is profoundly immoral. What made the Boomers decide that it was OK to steal from their kids? Is it a more selfish generation than all others? Will those of us in generation X continue this practice when we control the federal government? Will we have the courage to stop it?
The election is over. Now we must begin demanding fiscal responsibility from those who represent us, regardless of their party.
We must do this for our children, and our grandchildren.
Heinlein, in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (it’s brilliant and funny, read it!), proposed two chambers of government.
In the first, you need a 2/3 vote to pass a new law.
In the second, you need only a 1/3 vote to repeal an existing law.
Useful laws would tend to stay while the harmful and less popular are more easily weeded out.
Think of the things we could get rid of!
My question is this... If both parties are at fault and they all just work together to continue maintaining the status quo then how do we do anything about it? Who do we vote for?
There's one party that wants to raise taxes and, admittedly, also wants to spend money; and the other party wants to lower taxes and, of course, still continue to spend money. It seems to me that one party does seem to have some semblance of fiscal responsibility in mind. They just got walloped in the election.