For several decades, most members of Congress, several presidents and a great many American taxpayers have accepted a dangerous mental disconnect between exorbitant federal government spending and exorbitant federal taxing.
Taxes have been far too high - but spending has been far higher!
Chattanooga's Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann commendably faced our terrible financial problem in comments in Congress this week. All of us should join him in his concern. And all Americans should insist - at least - that Congress make some tough decisions to keep the problem from getting worse.
Fleischmann reminded us:
• Our national debt is more than $14 trillion!
• That's equal to $45,000 for every U.S. citizen!
• The debt is headed toward being equal to 100 percent of our gross domestic product - everything we produce in our country in a year!
• We owe 47 percent of our public debt to foreign sources!
• Our federal government is borrowing more than 42 cents for every dollar our country spends!
And Fleischmann pointed out that "the cause of this problem is increased spending, not a lack of revenue."
Nobody wants higher taxes - especially taxes to cover just the interest on the debt. Last year, interest cost us almost $414 billion!
And there is no easy solution to our astounding financial irresponsibility. In fact, the president and many of his fellow Democrats in Congress are demanding more spending.
But shouldn't we as taxpayers, voters and Americans insist - at a minimum - that Washington start curbing its excessive spending instead of making deficits worse?