I’m amused when I read article after handwringing article about the U.S. debt problem.
You can find analyses that explain the five worst ways to deal with the debt.
You can listen ad nauseam to those billed as the sharpest minds in finance explain that there are no easy answers.
You can hear debates all day long in the media about why America simply can’t stop borrowing.
You can even see proposals from Barack Obama’s administration suggesting that we shouldn’t just exceed the debt limit, again, we should just eliminate it – and, presumably, keep borrowing like there is no tomorrow.
I’ve got news for you: There will be no tomorrow for America if we keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.
The solution to the debt problem is really not complicated at all.
The U.S. government has been spending too much for too long, and both Democrats and too many Republicans can’t stand the idea of not printing money and borrowing from creditors including America’s enemies of the future.
As Proverbs 29:18 says: “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”
America’s leaders in Washington have no vision – and no interest in obeying the law, known hereabouts as the Constitution. They are even less likely to draw any truth or wisdom from the Bible, the source of all moral law.
I have a vision that can prevent America from perishing – and, make no mistake about it, perishing as a viable, self-governing nation represents a real threat if we don’t address the debt problem that has been brought about by irresponsibility, lawlessness and efforts to destroy liberty in these United States.
Here are the facts:
U.S. tax revenue from all sources equals roughly $2.2 trillion a year.
But Washington spends roughly $3.8 trillion a year. That’s not to say we have a budget of $3.8 trillion, because we haven’t had a federal budget since Obama came into office in 2009. We just have spending.
Think about that all of you who run a business or a household: Imagine you know how much revenue you expect in the next year, but you give no thought to setting priorities for spending it. If you want something, you buy it. If you don’t have the money, you put it on a credit card without any thought of how you will repay it. That is how Washington operates.
So Washington is spending about $1.7 trillion more than it has every year. And this has been going on for the last four years. (It was only slightly better before Obama came into office, but he was so appalled by the numbers back then, he actually voted against raising the debt limit in 2006, in one of his rare appearances for a vote in the U.S. Senate.)
This reckless fiscal policy has now brought us near to reaching yet another debt limit of about $16 trillion.
Yet there is no serious effort to cut spending – not by Democrats and not by the majority of Republicans in the House. Recent so-called “cuts” have actually represented nothing more than planned reductions in the rate of increased spending.
To put this in perspective, let’s say you have an individual income of $21,700 a year. However, you spend $38,200 a year. You make up the difference by using credit cards, and you now have a balance owing of $160,000.
What do you do?
If you are a Washington politician, you feel good about reducing your spending by $4 a year. You consider that an accomplishment. That is roughly what Washington has done to avert going over what it calls “the fiscal cliff.”
Do you really think we have averted a “fiscal cliff”?
Of course not. All we have done is put off the day of reckoning. All we continue to do is borrow money from the Federal Reserve and the Chinese – money that will have to be repaid someday by our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Here’s my vision – and I think it’s pretty good: Stop borrowing. Period. End of story.
We need to force the federal government to live within its means – not tomorrow, not next year, not five years from now, not 10 years from now.
When you find yourself in a big hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging.
Yet, Washington says, “Dig we must.”
Next month, without an uprising from the American people, Congress will inevitably raise the debt limit again – giving Obama all the funny money he needs to take your guns away, to implement Obamacare, to destroy the last vestiges of liberty this country knows.
I say there’s another way: Join the “No More Red Ink” campaign and petition House Republicans to just say no. I can’t promise it will work. But if anyone else has a better idea, I’m all ears.
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