By Patrick F. Cannon

I keep hoping the country will come to its senses. Alas, it’s so divided politically that any hopes I may have once had now seem almost fantastical.

            It may come as a surprise that most of our problems are solvable. For example, we came remarkably close to at least improving the immigration problems at our southern border, but former President Trump decided to keep it as a campaign issue, issued a decree to that effect, and that was that. In general, the Republicans in the House of Representatives have adopted “tit for tat” as their fiscal policy. If you want dough for Ukraine, then you must make a corresponding cut somewhere else to pay for it.

            This is not a coherent fiscal policy. Nor is one that makes half-hearted efforts to keep the national debt from rising too fast. Every once in awhile there is a sincere effort to confront the mess. I am reminded of the Grace Commission, established by President Reagon in 1982. (By the way, Reagan used the term “drain the swamp,” which has become the rallying cry for MAGA Republicans.) Chaired by J. Peter Grace of W.R. Grace & Company and released in 1984, the report made specific recommendations, which, predictably, were widely ignored. At the end of that fiscal year, the national debt reached $1.57 trillion. On September 30, 2023,it had risen to $33.1 trillion.

            This is what the 2023 number looks like: $33,167,334,044,723.16 (I wonder who we borrowed the sixteen cents from). The last time we had a Republican administration the debt increased by $6 trillion; and the current Democratic administration is determined to at least match that. And it is estimated to cost $870 billion just to pay the interest on the debt this year.

            I’m a financial ignoramus but let me personalize this. Say you have an income of $100,000 a year. You have a mortgage, car payment and an assortment of other bills which your income doesn’t quite cover. But you also have $100,000 in accumulated college loan and credit card debt, for which you can only make the minimum payment. Unless you can find a way to reduce your regular expenses, the possibility of paying off that debt is zero.

            For the entire country, the national debt has risen to 123 percent of our gross domestic product. In 1980, it was 31 percent; in 1990, 56 percent; in 2000, 54 percent; and in 2010, 64 percent. Even economists who used to pooh pooh worrying about carrying debt are beginning to worry. And although we’re not economists, we know debt like this is unsustainable.

            We also know that there are only two ways out of this mess – increase income or lower expenses, or, ideally, both. What are we to think of a Congress that lowered the tax rate in its most recent effort to  solve the problem? And has passed budgets that increased expenditures from $3.8 trillion in 2106 to an estimated $6 trillion this year. Way to go, guys and gals!

            Here’s the thing. None of us really knows the actual scope of the Federal government. Do you really know what the Department of Agriculture is doing? A famer might have an inkling, but what about you? How about the Department of Education? Since actual schools are funded and controlled locally, just what have they been doing since they were created in 1979? What do they spend their $84 billion budget on? What does the Department of Commerce do with the $68.5 billion they want to spend this year? If they can’t even issue a passport promptly, what is the Department of State going to do with its $63.1 billion? You don’t know, do you? I know I don’t.

            Thank God we have some state and local governments who manage to balance their budgets (sometimes because they’re required to by law). This even though Federal mandates like Medicaid add to their burdens. Why doesn’t the Federal government have a balanced budget amendment? Ask your senator or congressperson. I know you’ll enjoy the response if you get one.

Copyright 2024, Patrick F. Cannon