Many of us would like to think it really can't happen. But the fact is that when governments -- local, state or national -- continue to spend more than they take in from even too-high taxes, they can go broke.
Recently, you may have read that the capital city of Pennsylvania -- Harrisburg -- filed for bankruptcy after piling up a crushing debt.
Well, our federal government -- meaning all of us -- has a staggering debt of $14.8 trillion!
That means the federal government owes $47,000 per U.S. citizen -- or $132,000 per taxpayer!
And our debt is going up every day, because we let our government keep spending more than our high tax rates bring in.
Unfortunately, much of our tax money goes not for solid and necessary governmental purposes. We spend too much on other things, including many unconstitutional budget items, such as subsidies for farms and passenger rail service.
We have to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes every year just to cover the interest on our national debt. And that cost is going up.
Disgustingly, we are not about to pay off or even significantly reduce our debt anytime soon. Instead, the problem is getting worse.
When, if ever, are we going to call on Congress and the president to limit our federal government spending to what the Constitution provides for Washington to do, end the annual red ink problem, and balance our budget?
Excessive government spending and excessive taxing constitute huge and growing problems that we simply are not facing.
But we can't escape the very bad consequences.