Yes, POGO had it right all the time. Its us. We did it to ourselves. Can't blame anybody else.
What, you ask? The answer is a huge mountain of debt as high as one can see.
Last week, the Congress of the United States passed an amendment raising the debt limit by $1,900,000,000,000.00. That is $1.9 TRILLION.
The debt is already in excess of $14,000,000,000,000.00. That is $14 TRILLION.
But that is not all. There is an additional $60,000,000,000,000.00 ( $60 TRILLION) in unfunded future liabilities for things like Social Security, Medicare and other so-called entitlement programs.
We can't pay it.
We have about $2.5 Trillion in tax revenues coming into the Federal Government annually. The Federal budget for the upcoming fiscal year is in excess of $3.8 TRILLION. For the first time in history, the Social Security tax will not bring in enough to pay current obligations. Left unchanged, it probably never will again.
None of this even counts the huge debts of states like California, or the huge consumer debt load that exists.
Who will pay for all of this? How will they pay it?
There are those who blame the politicians for the mess. There is a lot of blame to go around, certainly. The situation in Washington is corrupt, dysfunctional, and overly partisan. Both political parties have bought into spending money that we don't have. Each side wants to reap the rewards of power and have the free rein to funnel public money or tax and regulatory breaks to their friends and contributors. Almost every one of the elected officials in Washington should be thrown out for having bought into that system
But its too easy to just blame the politicians. Our country is pretty evenly split between folks who are "conservative" and want low taxes and smaller government, and "liberals" who want higher taxes and more government.
Usually, there is a healthy tension between the sides that keeps the government more or less to a center course. But since the politicians of both sides are committed to spending rather than saving, we get more debt.
Let a liberal want to raise taxes to help pay for all of this, and every taxpayer gets riled. If a conservative wants to cut spending and cut taxes, then the other side gets riled.
We the people put a lot of pressure on Congress to preserve our pet spending programs or tax breaks or regulatory scheme.
The result has often been cutting taxes and increasing spending. Sometimes its been raising taxes and raising spending.
It just doesn't work. We need a new paradigm in Washington.
We are in such deep trouble that we must come together and make some changes. Everyone is going to have to give up something in order to cure the problem.
Spending will have to be cut; taxes will have to be raised. Everyone will have to pitch in. We just can't go on this way.
Nothing will get done unless everyone is called upon to make the sacrifices necessary.
If we don't stop, we become a Banana Republic, and our children and their children will suffer greatly.
