If the Federal debt of $16.2 Trillion were divided among all Americans, each of our more than 314 million citizens would owe in excess of $51,000 to retire it. Let's say that there was a way, through great effort and sacrifice by all of the patriotic people of the country, to collect this amount from every citizen and retire the debt ...maybe some would pay more than others...corporations would also contribute. What if we could do this and erase the debt overnight? Would you be in favor of this?
Think about it, all the problems that arise from such a large debt that I and others have chronicled...gone over night. No more indebtedness to China...no more credit problems. This would be great, right? Well, the problem is that Federal spending exceeds revenue every year by about $1.1 Trillion at today's spending levels. This would mean that one year after the country went to extraordinary measures and sacrifice to retire the debt, each citizen would already owe an additional $3,500 above their normal tax burden..that's every citizen, children, old, sick, handicapped, ...everyone. Additionally, with current programs and rates, there are future, unfunded liabilities for spending on things like Social Security and Medicare in excess of $61 Trillion...or more than $500,000 per household. Of course this is not current debt, but gives a view of future debt.
What does this all mean? Well, it's as I've said again and again, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. Even if we got the revenue to retire the debt overnight, the government would be back in debt in no time. With current spending, there's no way to get things in check. Government is like an out-of-control teen with credit cards. Even if they consolidate all of their cards, they will just run them up again. We have to take away the cards. We must return to small, decentralized and limited central government as as was intended by our founders and is in fact law through the Constitution. We must return our States to a place of prominence, where they can apply checks on the power if the Federal body. We cannot sustain...cannot long endure...under the current, corrupted system.
This does not, regardless of what the desperate central planners would have you believe, mean that the poor would be left to live or die on their own. It does not mean old people would be forced to eat cat food to survive. States could look after their own citizens as they see fit, without the burden of overhead caused by the huge Federal bureaucracy. Each State, according to the wishes of their own electorate, can deal with these problems on their own terms. If some states wish to pursue a "socialist-like" solution, they are able to...but with no bailouts from the Federal government if it fails.
With this arrangement, I believe States will quickly find viable solutions. They will have to balance policies that keep and attract business for full employment with the needs of their less fortunate citizens. They will have to compete for services and opportunity to keep people from moving to states that better meet their needs and expectations. To do this with no bail-outs means they will have to do what works, and not engage in wild, Utopian experiments. They will only be able to provide safety nets to the "truly needy," as they define it in their own States. In short, they will have to run their affairs like responsible adults and not spoiled kids. This is the Utility of Federalism that I have posted about in the past.
Ask yourself, would you trust your money to an investment that created ever-increasing, crushing debt, no matter how much money you contributed? An investment with huge overhead and red tape? Of course not. Why would you then trust our current government? This may go against what you have always believed, but it is what the founders intended. As for myself, I would rather stand with the learned, patriotic statesmen of the founding than the power-hungry, corrupt politicians of today.
