Each year the US Treasury Department collects trillions of dollars in taxes. Last year that amount was $2.449 trillion, and this year it is projected to bring in $2.902 trillion.
If we look at federal spending on the conventional Gregorian
calendar instead of the fiscal calendar, as of last Wednesday the federal
government had already spent all of this year’s income, and every dollar spent
after Wednesday is money it doesn’t have and has to be borrowed. That is called
deficit spending and Wednesday was Deficit Day, the day after which every
government action is performed on borrowed money.
Since there was at the time more than three months left in
the year, between last Wednesday and December 31 the federal government will
spend about $10 billion each day that it doesn’t have, adding $900 billion more
to the national debt. This is another year of profligate spending that bloats
our already bloated national debt still further, pushing the total near the $17
trillion mark.
The Heritage Foundation created an example that puts our
federal government’s fiscal irresponsibility in perspective: The median family
income in the US is $52,000 this year. If the median family spent money the way
the government does, it will spend $64,000 this year, meaning it would put
$12,000 on a credit card, without any regard for the $312,000 in existing debt
the family already has accumulated. Other than many politicians and
bureaucrats, who thinks this makes any sense at all?
Our government has so much debt that it breaks down to just
slightly less per American citizen than the aforementioned median family’s
annual income.
President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress demand yet
another increase in the debt ceiling, opening the way for even more debt,
although they want you to believe it’s only for paying existing bills.
A recent Bloomberg poll shows that 60 percent of the
participants believe Congress should require spending cuts before raising the
debt ceiling, even if that puts the nation at risk of default, while only 28
percent think the increase should be granted without conditions.
But Congressional Democrats want no restrictions on
spending, either now or in the future. That is the source of their influence
with voters, hence their power to impose asinine laws like the Affordable Care Act
on the American people, despite the people’s dislike for that law.
However, if spending limits do come about, projects like the $27 million to teach Moroccans to make pottery
would have to go. And the highly important half-million dollar project to
create a video game called “Prom Week” to enable Americans the relive their
high school prom would be sacrificed. Maybe we don’t really need a $376 million
renovation of the White House, and we will no longer be able to pay unemployment
benefits to those 1,000 prisoners who collected weekly benefits over a
four-month period, costing taxpayers $7 million.
You may argue that those examples of foolish spending and
waste amount to pocket change, but the complete list contains many more
examples, and we must remember that pennies here and there add up to dollars,
and millions of dollars here and there add up to billions of dollars. More
importantly: The government has no business doing any of these things, at any
cost, ever.
And, with the end of the fiscal year upon them, federal
departments, agencies and offices have been busy spending whatever is left in
their budgets, fearing that if they don’t spend it all, they will get less next
time.
Some examples from The Washington Post: “the Veterans Affairs
Department spent more than a half million dollars for artwork, the Coast Guard
spent nearly $200,000 on ‘cubicle furniture rehab,’ and the Agriculture
Department spent $140,000 on toner cartridges in just one day.”
And, according to Fox News, “federal agencies last week
spent money on junkets for Chinese wine connoisseurs, Christmas tree
initiatives, radio ads promoting New Jersey blueberries, a maple syrup recipe
contest and produced a YouTube video to instruct on the proper handling of
watermelons.”
So much for putting the interests of the taxpayers first.
Raising the debt ceiling is tied to a government shut down:
raise the debt ceiling and everything is fine. Don’t raise it and the
government shuts down. By the time you read this, government either will or
won’t have been shut down. Either way, the term “shut down” is so far from
accurate that it’s dishonest to use it. The government will “slow down,” not
shut down. Sure, it will be hard on some, and the longer it lasts the harder it
will be, but it’s not the crisis the Democrats and the media want us to think
it is.
But in order to make everyone think it will be the end of
the world, they have sacrificed their elitist façade of “tolerance” in favor of
name-calling. The same people who cringe at calling terrorists and jihadists
“terrorists” and “jihadists” have no problem calling Republicans and
conservatives terrorists and jihadists, as well as hostage-takers, extremists,
anarchists, arsonists and racists.
It should be no surprise that yet again politics has elbowed
out integrity and service.
No comments:
Post a Comment