BY RUSSELL TURNER
DISTRACTED GOVERNMENT
Over the past few years there has been much talk about distracted driving. Too many people behind the steering wheel have a bad habit of texting on their cell phones or putting on makeup etc.; all of those practices cause a person to take their eyes off of the road, which increases the likelihood of causing a crash. Most people can relate to the bad habit of distracted driving, but we Americans have a hard time of seeing the problem of distracted government.
Thank God that we Americans, for the most part, take better care of our bodies than we do our system of government. If we find out that we have a heart condition that requires immediate attention, most of us would not waste any time correcting the problem. However when it comes to the problems in our nation we tend to get alarmed by some news report for a short period of time, then we focus our attention on some new breaking story and forget the previous story. Sadly some politicians understand that many people have short attention spans. Subjects such as Obamacare, illegal immigration, or the current email gate scandal concerning Hillary Clinton continually distract us. In a very short period of time our government will reach its debt limit; our government will then have two options. One will be to default on our obligations. Two would be to increase the debt limit. I can just about guarantee you that the debt level will be raised, our government has gotten us into a situation where we are between a rock and a hard place.
In 2011 the Treasury Department brought in about $2.3 trillion in tax revenue. They spent $2.9 trillion JUST on mandatory programs like Social Security and Medicare, plus the defense budget. In other words, the US government was $600 billion dollars in the hole before paying a dime of interest. In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was facing a similar debt crisis. In just 11 years, the Ottoman central government went from spending 17% of its tax revenue on interest payments, to spending over 52% of its tax revenue on interest payments. Then came default. In 2011 the US was at 15%, the only thing keeping that percentage from ballooning out of control is the absurdly low rate that savers in this country are receiving. When interest rates do increase the interest that our government has to pay to service the debt may become impossible.
One example is the third largest economy, Japan. The Japanese’s debt level is so high that it now takes the government 43% of its central tax revenue just to pay interest this year. Just because we don’t hear about the debt problem on the evening news does not diminish the severity of the situation. Our national debt is bumping 18 trillion; history is full of examples of superpowers bucking under the weight of their debt. This is not the first time that it's happened, and it won't be the last. Many politicians use the distraction method to keep the American people ignorant on the issues. Sadly when the debt powder keg goes off it will be too late.
Comments
Post a Comment