P resident Franklin D. Roosevelt used to try to minimize the seriousness of our national debt by saying, “We only owe it to ourselves.”
The national debt before the Great Depression and before he took office was “only” $16.1 billion in 1930.
By 1940, after two terms of FDR, the national debt had grown to $43 billion.
Then came World War II. The debt went up to $256.1 billion by 1950, when the Korean War began.
But today, the national debt has risen to $12.9 trillion. Written out, that’s $12,900,000,000,000.
And federal spending is so excessive, despite too-high federal taxing, that the national debt is growing at a rate of $1.5 trillion — a year!
Just paying the annual interest on that huge debt is taking well over $400 billion of our taxes.
There is no prospect for “balanced budgets.” So the debt and interest will continue to become worse.
In addition, we have promised to pay millions of our fellow Americans regular Social Security checks each month. But there’s a problem with Social Security, too.
Starting this year, Social Security will pay out more than it receives from the high taxes on workers’ payrolls!
That excess payout obligation of Social Security was not expected to hit until 2016. But it has come earlier because of the recession, meaning fewer jobs and less income from Social Security taxes, while there are more applications for benefits.
Nobody wants retirees ever to face a time when their Social Security checks are cut.
But Alan Greenspan, famed as chairman of the Federal Reserve system, has made an effort to be sure the Social Security promises are “good.” He has said, “When the level of the (Social Security) trust fund gets to zero, you have to cut benefits.”
Nobody wants to do that!
So shouldn’t it be an urgent matter for President Barack Obama, for all members of Congress — and for all the rest of us — to confront the rapidly rising national debt and the rapidly depleting Social Security trust fund?
The regrettable fact is that too many of our presidents and too many members of Congress have raised taxes too high, and have made promises to spend even more!
They — and we — have not wanted to face the economic facts and the inevitable consequences.
Who wants higher taxes? Nobody!
Who wants bigger national debt? President Barack Obama and his fellow liberal Democrats.
Who wants Social Security checks to be cut? Nobody!
But where is the money going to come from if cuts are avoided?
The basic problem is that the current president (and some previous presidents) and the current Congress (and previous Congresses) have simply ignored and defied the Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution specifically delegates certain powers to the federal government — and prohibits all others! But our officials are spending too much money on too many things for which the Constitution of the United States does not delegate to them the power to spend money.
The cause of the problem is evident. The result is evident. The solution is also evident — but would be very, very difficult to face. So we are getting deeper into financial trouble.
It is not politically popular even to suggest we begin to “do the right thing.” But consider what will happen if we don’t even start.