News and Events

Finke: Deficits, debt and disgrace

Independence, MO — On Tuesday the U.S. government debt limit was officially raised. This obviously could have and should have been avoided by proper actions by Congress and all of the presidents since at least Lyndon Johnson.

When I graduated from high school in 1970, my share of the debt was $6,291. Now, just 41 years later, I owe $31,871. Both amounts are valued in 2010 dollars. Other estimates would say about $46,000 already. This is five times higher or worse despite the fact that our population has grown from 205 million to 311 million in the same timeframe.

According to Census Bureau and Congressional Budget Office estimates, my debt will likely be more than $103,000 by age 80 and $206,000 by age 92 unless things change. This counts no increase due to inflation, just good old-fashioned doubling and quadrupling.

In the past 40-plus years, we have declared cold wars, hot wars, wars on poverty, drugs, pollution and global warming. These figures show the progression of revenues and spending for these four decades:

Fiscal year 1970 – $193 billion in spending, $195 billion in revenue.
1980 – $591 billion in spending, $517 billion in revenue.
1990 – $1.253 trillion in spending, $1.032 trillion in revenue.
2000 – $1.789 trillion in spending, $2.026 trillion in revenue.
2010 – $3.456 trillion in spending, $2.162 trillion in revenue.

Does it not appear as though even if revenue were twice as high, this government must spend even more? Our greatest current challenge may be stupid notions that the level of our national debt makes no difference so long as (1) we can print the money to pay the interest and (2) we can get suckers to lend us more money. On Tuesday, people were bidding down 10-year Treasuries to yield less than 2.7 percent per year. Maybe there is an endless supply of them.

Last week one of my older friends said the real problem is the newly elected Tea Party Republicans and their unwillingness to go along with business as usual. Really? I wish some folks in the past 40 years had enough guts to stop running up the tab on our credit cards. How will I explain to each grandchild I left him a couple hundred thousand dollars of his very own national debt instead of a legacy?

Even now the dishonorables are only flapping their gums about slowing the percentage rate of increase a hair, not a single worthless dollar of actual spending reduction. The madness will continue upward and onward. No one even has the guts to say: We must lower the future Social Security benefits even for the baby boomers.

Without this present crisis, as a people we would still be blissfully ignorant of the doom we face. By our own ignorance and something-for-nothing appetites, you and I are responsible for this mess. Only we ourselves can force our elected prostitutes to stop bankrupting us. If this mess has not yet awakened enough of us to act, we will certainly deserve the steep decline in our national welfare we are sure to get.
 

By Ron Finke, special to the Examiner  http://www.examiner.net/business/x1800183642/Finke-Deficits-debt-and-disgrace