58 TRILLION!!! That's a number we should all worry about. Now that everybody, especially the military, is happy that the government is funded until October 1st, there are 3 other numbers that should be addressed. The new budget, the debt ceiling, and the third, which is the most serious, yet never passed on to American taxpayers. It's called unfunded liabilities, and that's the 58 TRILLION dollars.
Unfunded liabilities are those things that are mandated but money never set aside or money that the government had but spent on something else..like making the deficit look better than what it was. That's how Bill Clinton balanced the budget. Things like Social Security, Military retirement, and a host of other "off the books" expenditures.
With just the debt that is on the books, every taxpayer is on the hook to the tune of 181 THOUSAND dollars, the current deficit around 35. So a child born this minute already inherits it's share. It's not a Devious Democrat or Rotten Republican mess, it's our mess.
Most of the people who gave us debt upon debt aren't bad people, they're just ignorant people. Most are lawyers, a few are doctors, engineers, and even retired military. Very few, if any, are accountants. And the layer upon layer of bureaucracy and duplicate programs would make any number cruncher beg for a padded cell.
For decades we have kicked the can down the road, as the news media says to the point where a primal scream would make me feel good. Anytime somebody tries to tackle the problem, it gets skewered, cooked, and devoured before anybody even sees it, much like Nancy Pelosi tirade against Paul Ryan's budget even before he released it to anybody.
I remember debt commissions and Social Security commissions as far back as the 70's, probably before. Commissions aren't cheap. They cost millions of taxpayer dollars for participants and staff plus travel costs and any other expenditure that comes down the road. But their reports are seldom adopted, even in part, because there is just too much reality contained in the pages of the final report. I loved Alan Simpson when he was the straight talking senior Senator from Wyoming who could insult you to your very core and make you feel good about it. I was never a fan of Erskine Bowles which maybe has something to do with all the closed door, top secret meetings on Hillarycare. I thought he was as somebody who was a bit too intellectual,, a bit too radical and much to idealistic. But somehow, the very conservative Republican and the ultra liberal Democrat came up with a do-or-die plan to reign in the debt..and it was dismissed out of hand by the very President who called for the debt commission in the first place. Much of Paul Ryan's budget draws upon the debt commission's recommendations.
I never begrudged the ultra rich..the Bill Gates, Warren Buffets, and, yes, even Donald Trump, their wealth. Many charities wouldn't survive if not for the generous and mostly quiet donations they, and others like them make. True, there's a tax aspect but most don't do it for that. But the rich are vilified for not paying their fair share which is very unfair. If we confiscated every dime every millionaire has, it wouldn't even cover this years deficit..far from it. And, of course, if they didn't have any money, they would have to let all their employees go.. Whatever happens in the next 6 months will be messy. To be somewhat stabilizing, the debt ceiling has to be raised at least 4 trillion dollars at the current spending rate, and somehow we have to do a budget that, among other things, cuts the corporate loopholes that let GE make a total of 14 billion in profit and pay nothing in taxes, and still get a rebate from Uncle Sam. To be fair, Verizon, AT&T, and many other Fortune 500 companies legally evaded paying federal taxes. If nothing else, a minimum alternative tax is definitely warranted.
We don't need to go back to the fall of the Greek and Roman Empires, or even the shrinking of the British and French Empires to see what happens when a government collapses under it's own weight. We need only to go back to the fall of the Soviet Union, the do all and be all of it's citizens. They didn't let Eastern Europe free because they were nice. They did it because they couldn't afford it. And it only took 6 months to implode. We're on the same path.
Something has to happen and happen fast, otherwise we'll be just a footnote in the history of great civilizations. The changes that need to be made will not make anyone happy, but they are changes that must be made. In short, the federal government needs to only provide what is included in the Constitution. Nothing more, nothing less.
