Fiscal Incompetence or Selfishness?

By Andrew Zuelke

Chairman, Constitution Party of Wisconsin

 

 

Let us be blunt: our nation is in serious financial trouble, worse than we have been told by our Democrat and Republican “leaders” in Washington, D.C. President Trump signed his “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which will add trillions to our debt over ten years, so the deficit spending continues according to The Committee for Responsible Federal Budget, Newsmax and other groups.

At the usdebtclock.org website, there are several running counters tracking: the national debt, US Gross Domestic Product, population, defense, and more recently, the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E). When you go online, hover your computer cursor over any of these counters, and a pop-up box will appear, listing sources like the US Treasury, Congressional Budget Office, the IRS, etc.

As of the writing of this article, here are some raw numbers from the website in dollars, rounded out for simplicity:

• US National Debt – $37 trillion
• US Federal Tax Revenue – $5 trillion
• US Federal Spending – $7 trillion
• US Federal Debt to GDP Ratio – 123.40% (in 1960 it was 52.46%)
• US Debt Held by Foreign Countries – $9 trillion

Here is the most disturbing number, the number Congressional Democrats and Republicans don’t mention.

• US Total Debt – $106 trillion dollars. This number covers the Unfunded Debt/Interest, the unfunded liabilities.

One Inescapable Conclusion

Our national debt, which has been accumulating for over forty years, brings us to one inescapable conclusion: either our elected federal Congressmen and Presidents (who have been either Democrats and Republicans) past and present are fiscally incompetent, or they are selfish. It is one or the other…or worse, both. It is absurd to rack up that much debt and not be one or the other.

If I say to Democrats and Republicans who allowed this debt to accrue that you are fiscally incompetent, they will immediately say, “No, we are not fiscally incompetent. Our parties’ officials are the stewards and the protectors of hard-working Americans’ money. Only our two parties can handle America’s huge financial decisions.” OK, Democrats and Republicans, then that means you are selfish, bankrupting America in the short term to pump more money into federal programs, many of which are not enumerated spending in Article 1: Section 8 of the US Constitution, to buy votes and stay in power. Both parties will immediately say, ‘We are not selfish. We all ran for office to serve the American people. We sacrifice for our constituents every day.”

Look Both Ways

If John Doe is driving down the road and his car stalls on the railroad tracks, Mr. Doe has a responsibility to 1) get help moving/towing his car off the tracks and 2) to contact the authorities and/or railroad company to warn them of the risk to any oncoming train. One of Mr. Doe’s choices should never be to leave the car on the tracks and sue the railroad company if the train engineer hits his car and totals it.

In other words, choices one and two are our elected officials (the car drivers) taking responsibility for the car (our tax dollars and national budget), not to leave the car sitting on the tracks for the railroad company and engineer (future generations of taxpayers) to deal with.

It does not work for John Doe to say, “How was I supposed to know a train was coming?” Unless it was an inactive rail line, Doe knew a train would be coming sooner or later. That is common sense. Democrats, and Republicans, it does not work for your parties’ elected officials to say, “The debt was a simple mistake. How could we possibly have known that spending more than we brought in year after year, decade after decade, would cause the debt to grow this large?”

Someone locking his keys in his house, that is a mistake (I have done that). Someone driving too fast on an ice-covered road and going into the ditch, one could argue that was a mistake. When someone knows ahead of time something is not ethical or moral to do, and they go ahead and do that thing anyway, sorry, that is not a mistake, not an unavoidable accident.

Both Fiscally Irresponsible and Selfish

In other words, Democrats and Republicans, are both:

1. Fiscally irresponsible – They saw this debt train barreling towards the stalled car. Their own “Yea!” votes in Congress caused it.
2. Selfish – They knew funding many of the entitlement programs and excess military funding beyond what we brought in for revenue would rack up massive debt, and they kept deficit spending anyway.

If the Constitution Party had no other argument against Democrats and Republicans staying in power, the national debt is the only argument we need.

A Bankrupt Nation

Both major parties will say they must deficit spend because millions of Americans rely on entitlement and other federal programs. I say that a bankrupt nation cannot help anyone. If our economy collapses from this massive debt, there will be a run on the banks, hyperinflation, and no money to fund anything. America will be broken from within and unable to defend itself from enemies without.

This is the story of nations and empires throughout history which debased their currency (or before paper money, nations debased their coinage by mixing lesser metals like tin and copper into their gold and silver coins). The laws of economics do not stop at America’s borders. The financial irresponsibility, corruption and overregulation from growing bureaucracies which brought down other civilizations can and will bring down America. The fact that our economy has not collapsed yet does not mean it never will. Sooner or later, the spending gala will be over, and it will be time to pay the overdue bill.

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