"What We the People Owe"

"What We the People Owe"

by Brian Maher

"Donald Trump pledges to Make America Great Again. Kamala Harris pledges… something. Yet she believes her policies will work the identical effect. We are skeptical - deeply - that either is equal to the task.

The United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 120%. Hard evidence indicates that nations with ratios exceeding 90% are destined to gutter. They are far too burdened by debt to get along much. Debt is an impossible millstone upon their straining necks. United States national debt recently scaled $35 trillion. Combined United States debt - public and private - exceeds $101 trillion. 101 trillion!

Then There’s the Interest: Meantime, the interest on its monstrous debts begins to devour its innards. The Congressional Budget Office projects that debt service will scale 3.2% of the United States economy next year. Only once before has debt service bulked so large - in 1991. That bill was largely the legacy of the elevated interest rates of the late 1970s.

What is our excuse today? None exists. Explains the Peter G. Peterson Foundation: "In the past, increases in deficits and the debt were associated with temporary or one-time episodes, such as war or economic downturns. Now, however, deficits have become the norm due to the structural mismatch between federal spending and revenues.

CBO estimates that the gap will continue to grow; federal spending is projected to grow from 23.1% of GDP in 2024 to 27.9% by 2054, while revenues would only climb from 17.5% of GDP in 2024 to 18.8% in 2054."

It Won’t Change Under Trump: Would a President Trump declare a halt - and draw blue lines across the federal budget? We do not believe he would. The fellow spent extravagantly and luxuriously in his initial term… even prior to the plague. The frugal ghost of Calvin Coolidge is unlikely to invade him next time. Poor Cal’s shade has been absent from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. since the Great Depression. It will remain absent from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And the Republican Party - that Mr. Trump would theoretically represent - long ago exorcized Cal’s penny-pinching spirit. It likes to get elected. It therefore likes to spend money.

Harris Would Be Even Worse: Meantime, the sitting vice president, la Harris, represents what has accurately been labeled “the party of government.” That is of course the Democratic Party. Would a Democratic president sever the purse strings that fund government? The question is itself the answer. If elected, Ms. Harris would only spend. She would not cut. In brief: Government will spend under either regency, Mr. Trump or Ms. Harris. The former may purchase greater quantities of guns than butter… while the latter may purchase greater quantities of butter than guns. Yet it makes no nevermind. The results will equal.

Just No Political Will: “Even awful fiscal problems are fixable with the right steps,” says Daily Reckoning contributor Jeffrey Tucker, adding: "The problem is that the steps absolutely must include dramatic spending cuts, meaning 1–2% of GDP for starters or about $280–500 billion, which is not even on the table. “Not even on the table,” Jeffrey says.

Nor will dramatic spending cuts appear upon the table. Here Jeffrey lowers his ax upon the problem’s root: "The trouble is that there is very little political will in this country right now to cut the budget. And by cut, again, I don’t mean cuts in the rate of increase, like Washington language always says. I mean real cuts with whole agencies being made to disappear, dozens of them instantly. Doing this is entirely possible with political will. But I’ve yet to see any evidence that such will exists in the United States today." You see no evidence of the political will because none exists. Yet politicians do not bear sole responsibility…

Look in the Mirror, Citizen: It is easy to indict the politician, it is true. It is easy to say this rascal has sunk the nation $35 trillion in debt. Yet as we have argued before: If we haul the politician into the dock… We the People must go with him. That is because the politician is simply We the People’s mirror. Could politicians humbug us into a $35 trillion debt absent our knowledge - or consent? Only under a very, very strange species of democracy.

We like being a big deal in this world. We therefore demand a glistening military machine with every whistle and bell. We also like being tickled and wooed. Thus we demand heaping doses of Social Security… Medicare… a Rolls-Royce education… and a million gaudy baubles. Yet we do not wish to pay for them in full. Gimme, gimme, we bark from one corner of our mouths. But don’t raise my taxes, we bellow from the other.

“Democracy in Action”: We claim we are heart and soul for limited government. Yet are we simply heart and soul for ourselves? Give me that tax break, says the one. No, give it to me, says the other. You can both go scratching, says the third. I deserve it more. A fourth files a claim of his own.

Meantime, the hard-luck farmer wants his back scratched. The hard-pressed businessman wants his belly rubbed. The hard-worked teacher wants her apple. Millions more are hard at the business. All scheme to work the angles, to get a bucket in the stream, to get a snout in the trough… to catch a penny. It is the triumph of “special interests” when the other fellow gets his - when his parsnips are buttered. Yet it is “democracy in action” when our own parsnips are buttered.

“Every Nation Gets the Government It Deserves”: Your editor does not claim a moral pristinity. He does not sit in judgment - or stand in judgment. As a scientist of American democracy, he merely observes… and studies. And as he has conceded before, he himself has parsnips. And as anyone, he enjoys a good buttering of them.

Why not get when the getting is there to be gotten? If Americans en masse opted to decline the offering, your editor would fall in with them… and reject the offer. He would enlist as a dutiful member of the regiment, willingly broken to the common harness. Yet Americans en masse will not decline the offering. Why then should he? Why should you? “Every nation gets the government it deserves,” said 18th-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre. The United States has the government it deserves…"

- https://dailyreckoning.com/