Government fooled around,

Now it's finding out.

Image by Cedar

At the time I write this, babies are being brought into our world. And each one of them, right now, is saddled with $106,123 of the National Debt. Each person reading this owed — at the time I wrote this, by the time you read this your share is more — one hundred and six thousand, one hundred and twenty-three dollars. All in all the National Debt — again, as I write this — totals $36,219,464,543,391. It will be higher in the minutes or hours between me writing this, and you reading it.¹

It just keeps rising.

The Tax Code of the United States does not generate enough revenue to cover the spending that politicians and government promise. Period. Full stop. End of statement.

And I see you jackals in the back — no, we can’t tax our way out of the National Debt under the current levels of promised spending. It’s just not possible, no matter how many billionaires you propose putting the squeeze on.

One more time for the slow ones: The US government spends more than it takes in taxes. Has for decades.

Congress² knows this. The Presidents³ have known this. The Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch know this, understand that this CAN NOT CONTINUE, and yet, they continue to spend money like drunken sailors.

Why, you ask? Many reasons, but two big ones: 1) You, and 2) Moral cowardice.

Yes, you. (Well, the communal ‘you’.) The American voting public keeps demanding that the government pay for more and more things. Politicians promise you, the voting public, more and more things so that you will vote to put them into office. Thing is money isn’t free. It’s got to come from somewhere. That “somewhere” is through taxes.

Thus the baby who was just born with … let me check … $106,123 of the National Debt on his or her little shoulders.

The “moral cowardice” part comes in because merely to pump the brakes on the National Debt — just to slow it down — is going to hurt. Every program currently funded by the government of the United States is going to have to make do with less money, and that is political suicide for elected politicians. Any Congresscritter, Senate-thing, or President who slows the money tap to popular programs stands to lose re-election.

To halt the increase in the National Debt involves turning off the money tap to a significant number of programs and departments. We cannot continue to haemorrhage money at the current rate — and that’s exactly what it is: a massive, uncontrolled, profuse, and life-threatening escape of financial life-blood — without an inevitable collapse.

And the politicians know this. They fully understand the magnitude of the issue, and they’re kicking the fiscal can down the road, hoping that they’ll be out of office with a nest-egg before the National Debt brings the whole mess down around their ears.

Moral cowardice. They know there’s a problem, but they’re too worried about keeping their cushy jobs, with the benefits, the perks, and the social clout to actually — you know — do something about it. They know that if they actually try to do something, they’ll be out of office next election cycle, doomed to be ‘Has-Been’ for the rest of their miserable little existences.

Everyone who is losing their poo at the actions of the current holder of the Oval Office keys needs to bloody well understand two things:

1. Yeah, it hurts folks. It would have hurt less if the alleged “adults” in Congress had done the needful and reined in spending decades ago; and

2. All the programs being shut-down, agencies being shuttered, and government employees being unemployed … isn’t going to stop the runaway National Debt. It’s just going to slow it down.

Any politician protesting what is being done in the Executive Branch who has more than one term under his or her belt, has had more than one opportunity to address the National Debt, and they stuck their fingers in their ears and sang, “La la la!”

Personally, I’m firmly of the belief that every stinking one of those dacoits pitching a fit over what is happening — who had decades to fix it their way — should be dragged to the National Mall, and be made to pick from a bag containing one red bean for every nine green beans.

Every Member of Congress who pulled a green bean should be handed a club, and then those nine beat the holder of the red bean to death on National TV. Any of them refusing to do so should be crucified around the periphery of the National Mall to, you know, concentrate the minds of the rest.

But I’m kind of old-fashioned that way. Y’all should know this by now⁴.

Ian

1. If you’re curious: https://www.pgpf.org/national-debt-clock/

2. Given the number of alcoholics and geriatrics currently occupying Congress, this may be debatable.

3. That bloody potato that recently occupied the Oval Office probably didn’t, but his advisers damned sure did.

4. Oh, look. Another watchlist.