Tax time is an appropriate season to remember that it's our tax dollars that run the government -- along with half a trillion dollars in borrowed money each year.
This year, your tax dollars are paying for all of the "traditional" things the government spends money on each year, including national defense, salaries of government employees, interest on the national debt, foreign aid, a dozen cabinet departments including education, energy, and commerce -- and a new category this year: subsidies for your neighbors to get affordable health insurance policies.
All that government spending of our tax dollars does tend to mount up. According to TruthinAccounting.org, a nonprofit that keeps track of both our acknowledged current national debt and the burden of future government payment promises, we now have an "official" national debt of more than $17.4 Trillion. And the ticking clock on their website shows that we have promised to pay a total of $75.9 trillion (or maybe it will be $76 trillion by the time you read this) to future Social Security and Medicare recipients, and in interest on our debt, along with military retirement benefits, etc., etc.
In other words, we owe a lot of money! More than the government can raise in taxes. More than the government can make up by cutting spending. And probably even more than the government can "print" -- at least, before the rest of the world catches on and decides to stop lending us money at affordable interest rates.
The only way out of our debt dilemma is a surge of economic growth. That's not an unrealistic possibility. We saw our budget deficits turn into a surplus in the 1990s as a wave of productivity brought on by technology spurred economic growth. It's possible that as we lurch toward energy independence a wave of low cost energy could push our economy to grow at much faster rates. A growing economy means less government spending on unemployment benefits and more income tax receipts.
In the meantime, Washington is playing a shell game. They are dividing the country -- not between Democrats and Republicans, or liberals and conservatives. Instead, because of the burden of all this promised spending and increasing debt, Washington is dividing us between young and old. They are creating "Generation Warfare." Soon they will have us all fighting each other at the trough of government benefits.
Generation Warfare
What else can you call it when young people are coerced into buying expensive health insurance in order to subsidize the lower-cost policies of their elders?
What else can you call it when young people are enticed to take out student loans at interest rates many times what the government pays to borrow -- and then graduate into an economy that is not providing jobs so they can repay those loans?
What else can you call it when younger workers pay into a Social Security "trust fund" that is scheduled to move onto shaky ground long before they can expect to receive benefits -- all to pay for someone else's parents and grandparents?
And from the seniors' side, isn't it generation warfare for the Fed to keep interest rates low (depriving seniors of the opportunity to earn interest in their retirement years), so that the government's unprecedented borrowing (a burden on the young) can continue?
And isn't it generation warfare to reduce the government's support for Medicare Advantage plans and limit Medicare reimbursements to physicians and hospitals, just when seniors most need the care?
The Government vs. Us
Whether you're a young graduating college student, a middle-aged worker hoping to keep a job, or a senior worrying about making ends meet, you're a victim of a government that thinks it knows what's best for you. Our government entices you to depend on it, whether for student loans, or health care, or food stamps, or disability insurance.
We have a system in Washington -- built by both political parties -- that survives by turning us against each other, individuals and generations. Instead of figuring out how to grow the economic pie, they are obsessed with dividing up the existing pie. Young and old are starting to pay the price for our dependency on government solutions.
Abraham Lincoln said: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
It's something to think about as we approach Income Tax Day and send in your check to the government, or calculate how much you paid in withholding. Ironically, Tax Day is as far away from Election Day as you can get on the calendar. They -- the Washington establishment - are counting on us not to notice, or not to remember, when it comes time to vote them back into office to make decisions that change the course of America for generations to come.
Dependency is no recipe for prosperity. And that's The Savage Truth.