Pause for a moment, if you would, and consider this disturbing information from a recent analysis by The Associated Press:
“For the U.S., the crushing weight of its debt threatens to overwhelm everything the federal government does … .
“The government already has made so many promises to so many expanding ‘mandatory’ programs. Just keeping these commitments, without major changes in taxing and spending, will lead to deficits that cannot be sustained.
“Take Social Security, Medicare and other benefits. Add in interest payments on a national debt that now exceeds $12.3 trillion. It all will gobble up 80 percent of all federal revenues by 2020, government economists project.”
“That doesn’t leave room for much else.”
No, it doesn’t.
The trouble is, there is plenty “else” on which the federal government is going to have to spend money — and lots of it.
For instance, the federal government’s primary responsibility under the Constitution is to protect our national security. All other spending — on entitlements, education, pork-barrel projects and so forth — will be of relatively small benefit if we are subjected to attack by foreign powers or terrorists.
And yet by 2020, 80 percent of all federal taxes will be consumed not by national defense but by other parts of the budget. Yet many of them are nowhere to be found among the limited powers that the Constitution delegates to Washington.
Alas, we cannot simply say, “Let’s borrow more” to cover our future needs. With the national debt moving on “cruise control” toward a shocking $14.3 trillion — and with every American owing a $45,000 “share” of that debt — the ability to keep borrowing to sustain our spending spree is narrowing. Moody’s Investors Service has starkly warned that America’s credit rating could be in danger, barring serious improvement in our financial practices. That lower rating would make the cost of borrowing skyrocket.
But there seems to be no will in the current Congress or with our president to begin the tough but absolutely vital work of cutting federal government spending. While some minor tax relief in a proposed second “stimulus” may have some merit, new proposed spending does not.
Rather than spend more, Washington needs to be slashing spending at every opportunity if we are to have any hope of getting out from under this crippling debt load. It seems that will require a level of fortitude that many of our current lawmakers simply do not possess.