The Elephant in the Room

Oops! We’re far worse than we thought; official numbers released yesterday show that last year’s budget deficit will be larger than previously projected, not $1.4Trillion but $1.65Trillion. The truth is we are actually worse off, because that $1.4Trillion does not include the unfunded off-budget items like bailouts, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, student loans, and other stuff the press and government aren’t telling us. The actual debt of the US is around $20.7 trillion. Do some simple math and you see that for each and every one of the 310 Million people in the US there is a $69,000 bill that must be paid. Ouch! It’s worse than that as only about $100 million of us are wage earners paying income and social security taxes, the rest are unemployed, children, or senior citizens. That means that every person earning a wage has to repay just over $2,000,000.

By law the US cannot go much if any further into debt without a new law extending the US Debt Ceiling. The latest poll from Investor’s Business Daily shows 70 percent of Americans opposed to raising the debt limit. “Even a majority of Democrats — 55% — say raising the limit is a bad idea. Some 86% of Republicans and 74% of independents agree.”



Now about that elephant in the room, it’s not the stupidity of borrowing more money when the amount owed by every man woman and child in the country far exceeds the ability of wage earners to repay. It’s not that congress is acting against the will of over 2/3rds of the populations. It’s that Republicans hold all the cards. I wish it was us libertarians but it’s not it’s the GOP. They can stop all new deficit spending without any help of the Democrats right now. In fact all the power is in the control of the Republicans in the house.

Although Rand Paul is talking some serious cuts in the budget, most of the reality about “cuts” is not actually about “cuts” but about a slowing of the expansion in spending. Just look at Obama’s proposed budget. In truth because of the big majority the Republicans have in the house all they have to do is vote NO on extending debt ceiling and the government will be forced to cut spending. You are going to hear lots of scare tactics from the Democrats and Republican leadership, as to why we must allow the government to go deeper into debt. The fact is they don’t have to, they don’t have to expand the government is already too big. The GOP is in total control to stop the expansion of government, and can force the democrats to work with them on what must be really cut, not just rubber stamp expansion.

That’s the elephant in the room that the press, the GOP, and especially the Democrats won’t talk about. Republicans have the power to actually stop the expansion and possibly reduce the size of government NOW, not next year, next decade, but NOW. The question is will they? Since I don’t believe that there is any true difference between either the Democrats or Republicans, I can safely predict that the GOP will go along to get along and vote to expand government and put you and I further into debt.

Want to make me eat crow and prove me wrong? That's Easy. Contact every Republican congressman and let them know that you don’t want any further expansion of government, that you don’t want any more debt, that you want them to vote NO on raising the debt ceiling. If enough people do this and the will of the people is made clear to Washington, we can stop this mad raging elephant what continues to spend beyond our means.

Tom Rhodes, Vice-Chair Libertarian Party of Citrus County, 2/15/2011