Today should be a rather nice one except the temperatures and humidity will be much lower than we had for a while. The skies should be mostly sunny, but the temperature may not climb above the low 70s. The National Weather Service said yesterday that tomorrow’s temperature might not even get out of the 60s. All eyes are on the weather charts, though, as a potentially bad boy named Danny could give us some less than nice weather over the weekend. We won’t know that for a little while longer.
I’ve mentioned my last Wednesday of the month lunch meetings with a group of fellow retirees just about every month. Yesterday’s session was super. All but one of us was there and the table was full of laughter. I think there just may be a reason why many tables around us remain empty while we’re there. I really enjoy those sessions.
The news this week is that the nation’s budget deficit will reach 9 trillion dollars over the next ten years because of tax revenue dropping rapidly, record spending by Congress, and a sluggish economy. That projected deficit does not include the proposed government health care reform which would significantly add to it.
American complained mightily about the huge deficits of the Bush Administration, but they pale compared to what’s happening now. There are some people who will try to convince us that the current problems are a direct result of the previous administration; but what they won’t mention is that the spending for the last two years of that administration was controlled by a Democratic Congress, the same group causing the current problems.
Nine Trillion Dollars sure does sound like a lot of money, but have you noticed how many people aren’t making any noise against it? I suspect that most Americans have no concept of $9,000,000,000,000. I don’t. It is a number that very few of us have ever seen, even in some of those ridiculous math problems we encountered in school.
I’m not sure this will help, but let’s give it a try. In July, 2008, a year ago, the last population figure I could find, the population of the United States was 304,059,724. It, of course, has grown since then. Since we citizens are the ones responsible to pay back that debt, dividing that population into the rounded off $9-trillion tells us that each and every one of us will have to give the federal government more than $29,500 just to repay the debt. That doesn’t include what we will have to give just to maintain the government and the services it provides.
Since not all of those 304-million people pay taxes, partially because a goodly number of them are children or we’re providing them with welfare, that nearly $30-thousand is actually significantly higher.
Our children and grandchildren will be stuck with this debt, most of which is now unavoidable no matter what we do to elect new people to Congress.
Speaking of taxes, does anyone really believe that taxes won’t be increased to pay for all this debt? Way back when all this started, I said here that we cannot borrow ourselves into prosperity. Each passing day shows the truthfulness of that feeling. I read one report yesterday that participants in a forum hosted by Sen. Collins yesterday agreed the tax rate will reach 60% in just a few years.
America is changing, but I’m not sure it’s a change which is good for America. It was the hard work and getting the rewards, capitalism, system that made us what we are. We need to get back on that track. I absolutely don’t understand how people can look at other countries in the world and even consider that they might have a better system than what made this country great.
GiM
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