The National Debt 2
Spending cuts. The second half of the equation”
The daunting task of cutting government spending is difficult, painful, and controversial. The largest impediments to cutting spending are politicians, who are more concerned with getting reelected, and also a large part of the American public who expect their government to provide everything under the sun from cradle to grave.
Everyone wants a balanced budget, but no one is willing to give up any government program that benefits them or their family. The same is true for tax deductions. Anybody who benefits from a mortgage interest deduction, or a real estate tax deduction, or any other deduction that lowers their tax burden is unwilling to give it up. Basically, they are putting their own financial well- being above that of their country as a whole. Don’t misunderstand me. I not condemning that. These are the laws of the land, and you would be foolish not to take advantage of them.
The problem occurs when politicians try to eliminate a government program that benefits a certain segment of the public, or a tax deduction that does the same thing. Then we have a public outcry and the opposite political party joins the protest and the plan fades into oblivion. It was never the intent of our founding fathers that the government of the United States would provide the livelihood, from cradle to grave, for all of its citizens. Yet, that seems to be where we are heading. The people who founded this country were hard working, independent minded people who would have been embarrassed to have to take charity from the government or anybody. It would never have entered their minds that they would not have to make their own living. Today, it’s expected by some of our citizens and even some noncitizens, who have come here uninvited, that it is the government’s responsibility to support them from cradle to grave. This is absolute nonsense.
As I said in my opening paragraph, the task of cutting is difficult, painful and controversial. The difficulty, the pain, and the controversy occur in deciding where to cut and how much to cut.
Should we cut defense and homeland security? Should we cut education or veterans affairs? The possibilities are endless. The fact is that no matter where you cut, someone or some group will be unhappy. Here again, everybody wants a balanced budget, as long as any cuts being made, do not affect them personally.
Let’s begin this discussion with the defense department and the department of homeland security. I put these two departments together because some of their functions overlap.
President Obama cut the defense budget significantly by using the mechanism of sequestration, which, put simply, are automatic, across the board spending cuts. I didn’t disagree with the idea of cutting spending. I was opposed to cutting spending on defense. See what I mean. There’s always someone who will be unhappy. This made the job of protecting the US and its interests much more difficult. Here are a couple of examples. The number of ships in our navy was reduced to pre- world- war 2 levels. The Air Force was forced to scavenge spare parts from planes that had previously been put into mothballs in order to keep their planes airworthy. This is not the way the world’s only superpower should have to do business.
We are currently fighting a war against ISIS in at least 6 different countries. Even though this war is not being fought with tens of thousands of boots on the ground and tons of equipment and supplies, it is still costing us billions.
The reason I have put Defense and Homeland Security together is because of the numerous terror attacks both here, and in Europe and other places as well. Most of these attacks have been ISIS inspired. Fortunately for us, we have the best anti-terrorist agencies on the planet. They are mostly, if not all under the Department of Homeland Security. These departments are manned by intelligence and anti-terror professionals who are committed to keeping this country safe 24/7.
We also have people at the local level, like the NYC Police Department, who is reputed to have one of the best anti-terror units in the world. Local anti-terror units such as these work in conjunction with people at the federal level sharing information and intelligence on people suspected of being terrorists or providing support for terrorism. Obviously, they can’t be 100% effective, but we are certainly better off than our allies in Europe.
As you can probably tell by now, I am against any cuts to either Defense or Homeland Security. Another reason I am not in favor of cuts in these two areas is NATO. The United States is NATO. Without the US there would not be a NATO. We fund it, to a larger degree than any other country, we supply significant manpower, and we lead it.
The funding requirement for NATO members is supposed to be 2% of a member country’s GNP. I did some research and I found out that only 5 members are up to date on financial requirements. The rest are delinquent.
In addition to the money issue, the US is the only country, with the possible exception of Great Britain, with the ability and the backbone to lead. If the US was unable, or if we refused the leadership role, or if our share of NATO funding was cut by Congress due to budgetary concerns, I very much doubt that NATO would survive. It definitely would not be the strong alliance it is today. That said, a strong and united NATO is a necessity for keeping the peace in Europe. Individually, our NATO allies are incapable of countering Russian aggression, but together, Russia or any other aggressor would be no match for NATO.
In addition to gathering intelligence and its role in protecting the homeland, The Homeland Security Department is also responsible for securing our borders. This brings me to my final reason for not cutting Defense or Homeland Security. That reason is illegal immigration. Although the number of illegals crossing our southern border has diminished in recent months, there are still thousands of these people entering our country every year uninvited. Some of these illegals are criminals. Previously, before the downturn of illegal border crossings began, the number of criminal illegals was estimated to be approximately 10% of the total number of people entering our country illegally. In my opinion, since the downturn, the percentage of illegals now crossing the border who are criminals has gone up. My reasoning is simply this: If you’re a criminal, and you make your living smuggling drugs across the border or you’re in another illegal enterprise, you are not going to stop crossing the border, just because you might get caught. You will continue to go about making your living as long as you can.
These criminals have murdered Americans. They have also raped and brutalized American women and children. In addition, tons of illegal narcotics, have been, and continue to be smuggled across our border. Are we, as a sovereign nation, not allowed to say who can, or cannot, enter this country? How many more Americans are we prepared to sacrifice for this liberal agenda?
These narcotics have killed thousands of Americans citizens .Most of these deaths are young people. These people had barely begun to live their lives when they were killed. Even though these Americans were not killed directly by these illegals, they are just as dead. We need to stop this flow of illegal drugs coming across our border and if that means building a wall, so be it.
Let me make one more point regarding illegal immigration. These dead Americans should still be alive today. The people who are responsible for these deaths, whether directly or by the drugs that they smuggled into our country, should not even have been here in the first place. They were able to sneak across our southern border because our government, by not providing adequate border security, either in the form of increased border patrol or other measures, allowed these criminals to enter our country.
These lax immigration policies of President Obama allowed these crimes to take place. The buck stops on your doorstep Mr. Obama. These dead people are part of your legacy. Live with it.
Whether we build a wall, hire more border patrol, or use technology to secure our border, it must be done. These crimes against American citizens, in their own country, where they should be safe, have got to end.
Another department I want to discuss is Veterans Affairs. Should we cut funding in this department? I think not. We would be turning our backs on people who sacrificed for their country. Some of them gave an arm, or a leg, or an eye or worse. Some of these wounded soldiers have emotional problems that they and their families have to deal with every day. How, in good conscience, do we as a nation, not provide the care and treatment that our wounded vets need and deserve.
It’s a sin the way our vets have been treated. Some of them have to wait months for an appointment at a VA facility. Some have died while waiting for treatment or have actually committed suicide. This has got to be the ultimate disgrace of our country.
These men and women volunteered to serve and protect their country and this is the best we can do for them? I think the illegal aliens are probably being better treated than our vets. My guess is that in this case it’s more a matter of poor leadership, bureaucratic BS and some federal employees who are not committed to providing these injured veterans the absolute best care available. President Trump has appointed a new secretary of veteran’s affairs. Let’s hope this administrator is the beginning of meaningful change for the better. No group of Americans deserves it more.
One department that I would be in favor of eliminating is the Department of Education. Every state in the union has its own Education department. This makes the department of Education on the federal level redundant and unnecessary.
I’m sure that the Education Departments at the state level are staffed with fully competent education professionals who are more than capable of designing educational guidelines and curriculum for the students in their state. They are also fully capable of tracking the progress of the students through the use of standardized tests to make sure that all students are achieving a minimum level of learning. In addition, every school district is also staffed with education professionals, who in most cases, are also fully competent, and certainly more committed, just because they live and work at the local level as opposed to working as a bureaucrat in Washington and having no knowledge or involvement with anyone at the local level.
One other reason why I am in favor of getting rid of the federal Department of Education is central planning. I don’t want any bureaucrat or politician from any party dictating to local school districts what to teach, what textbooks to use, or how to teach the curriculum. These decisions should be made by the local school administrators in conjunction with local parent groups.
I originally planned to write about a lot more government departments and government agencies individually but decided that I could make a blanket statement and say most of what I wanted to say.
Most of this paragraph is well known and rather obvious. Most federal agencies and departments are bloated with unnecessary spending and overstaffing. Everybody knows this, but nobody, including congress, seems to want to do anything about it. Year after year, budget after budget, it goes on and on. Bureaucrats building empires and requesting more funding every year. To his credit, President Trump has ordered a hiring freeze in all federal departments except the military. This type of policy will bear fruit over a multi-year time period. Progress will occur every year on an increasing basis. More people will retire every year, and the longer this goes on, the more money we will save. I’m sure as time goes on, over the next 4 years, that the President, either by executive order or by passing legislation, will put other cuts in place that will enable the federal government to save billions. Finally, somebody is doing something about cutting spending. It’s about time.
Everything discussed thus far in this post has been like the warm up band at a Stones concert. What that means is that if you really want to cut government spending, you have to look at entitlements. I believe it was a reporter who once asked John Dillinger why he robbed banks. His answer was “That’s where the money is.” The same answer holds true for cutting spending. If you want to cut government spending you have to cut entitlements because, “That’s where the money is.” Our government spends about $1.3T on Social Security and unemployment and another $900B on medicare. This is over 60% of the entire US government budget which is why savings in this area will have a significant impact on the federal deficit and ultimately on our national debt. Right now the Social Security Trust Fund is in positive cash flow. It is projected that this will be the case until the year 2036. Medicare on the other hand is in negative cash flow taking in only about 77% of the money they pay out.
There have been many suggestions on how to deal with the growth of social security and entitlements as whole. One suggestion regarding social security was to lower the rate of growth (not cut) of social security spending. This would lengthen the time that SS would be in positive cash flow. It would not solve the problem indefinitely.
The only politician that I’ve heard address the issue of social security and medicare is Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. He actually had the courage to bring this issue up during the presidential campaign. Politicians have historically avoided this issue because retired people vote and they don’t want their benefits reduced. Basically, he wants the people who need it to get it and the people who don’t, not to get it. People who don’t have a retirement plan from their work or have something that provides only a basic amount of income for retirement would be eligible for social security benefits. It would be a means test with the details to be worked out later. The same would also be true of medicare. If your workplace offers medical insurance after you retire, then, depending on the plan, you would not be eligible for medicare or you might be able to get some kind of supplemental plan that would take up any slack omitted by the plan offered by your former employer. This sounds very socialist to me, but when faced with social security and medicare plans that are going bankrupt, you have to throw ideology out the window and work with the choices that are available.
Another idea put forth by Mr. Christie was raising the age of eligibility to collect benefits. I have been unable to find this information online, but his plan, as I recall, was to raise the age of eligibility one month every year until the age of eligibility reaches 68 years old. One other part of his plan should be mentioned. These changes would not affect anyone currently collecting benefits or close to the current age of eligibility. This sounds like a workable plan to me. I hope our elected officials take this up and try to put some kind of solution on the table that both parties can support.
We are currently $20T in debt. Some people would call that poor. We have people in this country who are American citizens who don’t have a place to live and don’t have enough to eat. They also don’t have medical care. This said, we are still better off than the rest of the world. This is why every time (I shouldn’t say every time) we make deals we seem to make bad ones. The countries we are negotiating with want our money. Everybody wants our money. They’re lining to get a chunk of our money. The UN wants our money, NATO wants our money, Mexico wants our money, countries on the pacific rim also want our money, Iran wanted our money (and we gave it to them), and now the entire world wants our money. This Paris agreement on climate change in principle is probably not a bad idea. If the world as a whole was going to lower carbon emissions I could at least consider it. But when we as a country are singled out to lower our carbon emissions and countries like China and India and other 3rd world manufacturing countries are given a pass or required to reach a lesser standard of lowering their emissions, I have to wonder whose side our negotiators are working for. In addition to having to meet more stringent carbon emission standards, we also are expected to kick in a very large amount of money (we’re talking trillions here, yes, trillions, with a capital T). This money will be collected by way of a carbon tax on everybody who uses energy and it will be given to some organization, probably the UN, to disperse, at their discretion, to whoever or whatever suits their fancy. If you’re a cynic like me you would believe that the whole idea is a scam to transfer wealth from us to the rest of the world. This money will be squandered, given away, used as payola to line the pockets of foreign bureaucrats, or just conveniently lost (excuse me “misplaced”). We will have been sold out by our elected officials again. This money will disappear like intestinal gas in the wind.
Thank God the president got us out of this deal. The whole world is upset with him for doing that. If he took three trillion away from me, I’d be upset with him too. That’s what this is all about. It’s about US taxpayer money. It’s about transferring wealth from the US to just about everyone else on the planet. Does this sound like socialism to you? If Hillary would have won, this scam would have worked and they would have gotten the money. Evidently we have become the world’s slush fund. It’s our function and our duty to fund the needs of the rest of the world. This is not the end of the world’s effort to get our money. They will come up with other scams probably even larger and more creative in nature. We had better watch our backs.
We are 20 TRILLION dollars in debt. That’s more money than the total wealth of all the world’s billionaires put together. I can’t even imagine how much money that is. This much is certain. The United States cannot afford to continue on the way we are going. Whatever steps are elected officials decide to take, they had better take them soon. The Fed has just raised interest rates again. This increases the cost of the interest we are paying on the debt. Every time they raise rates it makes it that much more difficult to balance our yearly budget.
There are several countries in Europe that are on the edge of the so called fiscal cliff. Many of these countries have significant levels of GNP. Greece, the poster child for national debt, has a debt to GNP ratio of 175%. Other countries like Italy, Spain, and Portugal are around 150% and rising. The US is at roughly 115%. We are not that far behind. The higher our debt to GNP ratio becomes, the more risk investors have to take when they buy US government securities. The higher the risk, the higher the interest the government has to pay. This makes our problem even worse. To my way of thinking, this is not rocket science. It’s actually pretty straight forward. Getting into this hole was easy. Getting out of it is going to be a lot more difficult.
My final thought is this. The farther down this path we go, the more serious the problem becomes. The more we borrow, the more money we spend on interest. This is especially true now that interest rates have begun to rise again. The more money we spend on interest, the less money there is to spend on programs that would directly benefit the American public as a whole. Spending on programs like job training, roads and infrastructure, maintaining our national parks and even medical research would have to be pared back to cover the increase in interest expense.
The issue of our national debt needs to be addressed and addressed quickly. Our country has been the economic superpower of this planet for decades. If there was ever a threat to that status, this is it. When Mitt Romney ran for president in 2012, he mentioned that 45% of the people were collecting some kind of government benefit. These would include social security, medicare, unemployment, food stamps or any other government give-away program that was out there. I am in no way condemning these programs. I’m simply saying this. If 45% of our population are collecting government benefits of one kind or another, the other 55% of population must be paying for them. If those two percentages were to reverse, this country would have a very large problem. This is why we need to bring jobs back to this country. It is my hope that both political parties can put partisanship aside, find common ground, and return the US to fiscal responsibility before we reach a point where irreparable harm is done to this country.