Let me ask you this: what’s the biggest threat to our Republic? Terrorism? Nope. Nuclear War? Guess again. Brittany Spears? Close but no. Let me give you a hint, consider these facts:
A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
A billion days ago, there were no humans on earth.
A billion dollars of spending by the Government of the United States was just about 8 hours ago.
Our Government has a slight spending problem, and by slight, I mean huge. Politicians are spending more money than we have, and we have a lot. What is particularly disturbing about this spending is that most of it is on social entitlement programs that are nothing more than elaborate vote buying schemes. So, why don’t we get rid of the politicians that are spending us to death? Because too many of us are recipients of the free stuff they’re peddling. We are becoming a country of Government dependents and that is just what they want.
Alexander Tytler was a smart guy and a Scottish Professor at the University of Edinburgh in 1787. Referring to the Republic in Athens some 200 years earlier, he had this say: “a democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent source of government. It will only exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy.”
These words should hit home with anyone who has been watching Hillary, Barack and even John McCain on the campaign trail, promising everything to everyone: free healthcare, free medicine, free food, free housing, free taxes, free citizenship, and even free freedom. People are actually fainting at Barack’s rallies because he’s promising so much free stuff. Obama supporters aren’t the only ones fainting either. Those of us smart enough to realize that none of this stuff will actually be free are fainting at the certainty that one of these spenders will be elected President and continue the policies that pose a serious risk to the future of our Republic.
Okay, you don’t want to take my word for it. How about David Walker’s. He is, or was, the Head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Controller General of the United States (the nation’s top accountant). The GAO is known as the watchdog of Congress. In the past few years, David Walker has been on a mission, telling anyone who will listen that America simply cannot continue to overspend without dire consequences. He believes our Government is on a “burning platform” of policies that cannot be sustained. Despite the fact that we haven’t had a recession since 2001 and have had one of the highest economic growth rates in the world, we have accrued a spending deficit of $760 Billion dollars. Before you suggest that it’s because of the Wars, know this: only $100 Billion of this deficit can be attributed to the Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and incremental Homeland Security. The rest is largely from entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. Even more worrisome, our unfunded Government commitments to Social Security and Medicare have doubled in the past 5 years to $46.4 Trillion dollars. That’s $46,400,000,000,000. According to Walker, by 2040, the United States will only be able to pay for the interest on its federal debt and some of the Social Security and Medicare benefits. There will be no money for anything else: no military, no infrastructure, no nothing. David Walker has been busy traveling the country on his “Fiscal Wakeup Tour”. He has given up hope on elected representatives and taken the fight directly to the people. Walker believes: “the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Pakistan or Afghanistan, it is our own fiscal irresponsibility.” The scary part is that no one disagrees with him, not the Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, not the Senate Budget Committee and not a majority of bipartisan economists. Everyone agrees that we need a solution, but no one has the political will to do anything about it.
So, how did this happen? How did a country of rugged individuals that valued self-reliance and independence become convinced that government was the solution to our problems. That’s easy. Politicians told us that life was too hard, that we were victims, and that we deserved entitlements. We liked what we were hearing. So, they made us dependent on government programs because dependent people vote. They delivered the goods, and we kept voting for them. It became a vicious cycle.
Back to that Scottish Professor, he also said that : “the average lifespan of the world’s great civilizations, from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During this time, those nations have progressed through the following sequence:
- from bondage to spiritual faith
- from spiritual faith to great courage
- from courage to liberty
- from liberty to abundance
- from abundance to complacency
- from complacency to apathy
- from apathy to dependence
- from dependence back into bondage.”
I would say that we are somewhere between #6 and #7. David Walker agrees: “we are mortgaging the future of our children and grand-children at record rates…this is not only an issue of fiscal responsibility, its an issue of immorality.” Unfortunately, Walker resigned his position last month; now there is one less person in Washington fighting the good fight. And so, it is up to us, again, those precious few that refuse to be dependent on a Government that can’t stop spending.
...more columns by Todd A. Carges
