On the Precipice of Bankruptcy

I realize that for generations now, we Americans have not really paid attention as our elected officials have gone and spent literally trillions of dollars of our taxpayer money on everything from pork-barrel projects, to pay-backs for special interest groups, to even occasionally legitimate government business needs.

With that being said, it is good to see that millions of Americans are now waking up to the fact that if we don’t do something to rein in spending RIGHT NOW, we may very well doom our country to complete fiscal insolvency. Bankruptcy!

It is bad enough when a family is forced to go into bankruptcy for whatever reason. It will be exceptionally painful for the United States and the entire world if we allow our nation to also continue down this path ultimately leading to this destination. The world will not easily recover from its greatest producer and consumer going into bankruptcy.

We the people must insist that the government refrain from all but the most absolutely necessary Constitutionally-authorized spending for the indefinite future. It will likely take generations to fix the hole we have dug; however, this is only logical considering that it has taken a like amount of generations to have placed us in this desperate spot we currently find ourselves.

We MUST stop growing government and allow private enterprise to grow again and thus to return to the robust engine of our economy. Government does far more to siphon money from productive means and services and often times ends up exacerbating the problems it is presumably trying to fix. I give you the Department of Education and the Department of Energy as two prime examples of government largess that has taken vitally important issues, concocted federalized solutions with untold billions of tax payer dollars, and then ended up with poor educational results and an even greater dependency upon foreign sources of energy respectively.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the growth in state and local government employees since 1946 has increased from 3.3 million then to 19.8 million today. This is a 492 percent increase as the country’s population increased by only 115 percent. Since 1999 the number of state and local government employees has increased by 13 percent, compared to a 9 percent increase in the population.

The United States had 2.3 state and local government employees per 100 citizens in 1946 and has 6.5 state and local government employees per 100 citizens now. In 1947, 78 percent of the national income went to the private sector, 16 percent to the federal sector, and 6 percent to the state and local government sector. Now 54 percent of the economy is private, 28 percent goes to the feds, and 18 percent goes to state and local governments. The trend lines are ominous and absolutely unsustainable. We cannot continue to grow government jobs as our primary source of employment for Americans.

I heard Congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas’ 5th district say this morning on the news that as of today it would take a 60% increase in taxes to just balance the current Obama budget so that expenditures equal income. This does NOTHING to pay off the $74 TRILLION in debt we currently hold as a nation right now. This simply means that we are paying for what we are buying with this 60% tax increase. How in the world do we fix this problem?

First, we do NOT continue to spend money we do not have. Second, we make painful and drastic cuts across the board in all government departments and agencies, say anywhere from 10 to 20% cuts. Further, we eliminate those departments that are not necessary and are actually counter-productive to their intended goals, like the Department of Education and the Department of Energy. These are issues that are typically better handled on the state and local level anyway, particularly when it comes to education.

The bottom line is that if we don’t stop this spending now, our children for generations on down the line will suffer for our reluctance to address the problem. Adding socialized health care, cap & spend energy policies, and bailouts & nationalization of private industry will only get us to the edge of that cliff sooner.