I have contended and contend that the continual kicking of the can down the road in spending bills and increasing the debt ceiling is economic insanity.  The staggering debt our politicians have burdened future generations with is beyond dumb; it is criminal.  I have little doubt that they either do not care because it will not affect them, or they believe it must be done. 

I will not attempt to address the issue of not affecting them because they seem to have built-in insulation for themselves and future congresses.  However, the claim that the spending must be done is WRONG!  It does not have to be done!  Would it cause some challenging and austere conditions in America?  Yes!  Could we overcome them?  Yes!  Would it devastate some people?  Yes!  Could something be done to mitigate the pain? Yes! 

I have said, Yes to the questions without giving you one iota of means to rectify the situation and find a solvent path and position for America.  If I were to leave it there, that would relegate me to the same level as the political elitists who have created this mess.  I will not!

How in the name of sanity can anyone think that authorizing $4 TRILLION in new deficit spending over the next two years is good?  That would mean that the national debt would soar to $35 trillion in 2025, which does not account for our unsecured debt, which is hundreds of trillions.  We are buried in debt; we could not dig our way out if we had ten lifetimes. 

This debt undermines the future prosperity of every American.  You can incur only so much debt before the house of cards collapses.  There is only so much money that can be confiscated from the people.  One of the tragedies of this lunacy is that it not only encourages it enables a sense of entitlement and destroys incentives.  We are in the Red (not conservative), which should make us Blue (not liberal). 

When the federal government consumes 23.7 percent of the gross domestic product, we are unbalanced beyond reason.  Excessive spending is creating or fueling growing inflation, causing interest rates to escalate, destroying small businesses, and undermining private investments.  No fiscal sanity there!  We have proven in the past that reducing taxes and cutting spending increases everyone’s bottom line, including the federal government.  No Democrat and few Republicans in Washington can grasp that reality.

Since 2019 our federal budget has increased by 40 percent, whereas our GDP has grown by about 10 percent.  Nice balance, right?  Not if you want to actually recover economic stability and restore people’s ability to achieve the American Dream.  Unlike America, China is investing in factories and technology to produce airplanes, weapons, and semiconductors.  We remain extremely dependent on products produced in China, which is not good for America.

In America, we have an insane policy where producers must obtain permission from the regulators to produce their products.  I read a discussion about this lunacy, and it centered around home dishwashers.  Commercial dishwashers take about one to three minutes to go through a cycle. The federally regulated home dishwasher takes ninety minutes.  Why?  Supposedly to save energy, but that fails when confronted with reality.

The federal government operates on incremental budgeting rather than zero-based budgeting.  Most households do not have the luxury of incremental budgeting but are forced to live within their means.  There is a caveat in many of our federal bureaus that require “use it or lose it,” and what we see is wasteful spending to ensure that nothing is lost from the budget, whether needed or not.  Additionally, the federal government has a built-in ten-percent increase in the budgets used. 

Zero-based budgeting requires starting at zero and proving or verifying why the money is needed.  It starts from scratch every year and undergoes scrutiny to determine the appropriate purpose and amount.  It has no “use it or lose it” inclusion, and it is not spent if the money was not needed. The argument that it is time-consuming and produces little real reduction in spending, I believe, is flawed.  It could be very time-consuming but should be quite straightforward.

If the budget has a “use it or lose it” inclusion, what was spent last year does not accurately indicate what was or is needed.  It becomes an effort to protect the agency’s purse. It allows for abuse and waste, including misappropriations and lavish spending on the members of the agency or those they seek to bribe. 

I saw a report that six major corporations use a zero-based budgeting process:  Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Campbell Soup, ConAgra, Boston Scientific, and Tribune Publishing.  There may be more, but those were the focus of the report.  Those companies’ latest quarterly financial statements indicated that Kellogg had not fully implemented the process, but the other five had.  Three of the five reported decreases in operating costs from 1.6% to 3.5%.  That does not sound like much, but if you are speaking in terms of billions or trillions, it is substantial.

Regardless of the budgetary process favored or used, the idea of an actual reduction in spending to keep in step with revenue should be our objective in Washington.  If the outgo is more than the income, debt occurs, and debt requires interest and hampers needed spending without incurring additional debt.  If one enters a debt cycle with no desire, plan, or hope of paying off the debt, reason takes a vacation, and unrestrained spending occurs. 

The federal government operates as though it has an endless amount of revenue or an unlimited credit card with no default penalties.  What happens when the interest on the debt exceeds the revenue?  You cannot borrow your way out of debt.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul only guarantees that Peter becomes insolvent, and then whom do you rob? 

America, we need to stop allowing Congress to kick this can down the road and demand that they balance the budget.  That will not clear the current debt but would prevent additional debt from being piled on the already insurmountable pile of debt.  No business and no home can operate perpetually without restraints and cutting back.  The federal government should not be allowed to do so, either.

Of the many things that rile me about government and politicians is their seeming lack of grasp of economic sanity.  Buying votes has replaced fiscal sense among politicians.  We have a public today who has become so addicted to the government tit politicians would not be able to secure reelection if they addressed the issue. Therefore, they will not.

Money is not the root of all evil, but the love of it is.  Money is power and enables those with it to purchase faux loyalty so long as the dole continues.  Politicians are incredibly adept at spending money that does not belong to them and has been immorally attained.  The founding fathers would be appalled, and Jefferson would call for watering the tree of liberty.  It is time to wake up with a good awakening!

God bless you, and God bless America!