Memento Debto

Lots and lots of conversations du jour are taking place in the course of the ongoing presidential campaign in regard to, well, all manner of irrelevant things.

Some are more irrelevant than others -- Hillary's atrocious handling of national security information, for example, is relevant in the sense of negating her qualifications to lead the USA, but it doesn't relate to an actual issue facing the country, merely her personal corruption level.

While there are several issues that are, or should be, at the top of the list when we are polled on our home phones, one single issue rises to the top of the list for me and my family.  And for my children and, if it ever happens, grandchildren.  And if not mine, then yours.

Let me put it as clearly as possible: we are in debt up to our socks.

The figure of nearly $20 trillion (our national debt, in case you didn't guess), which will be over $20 trillion before the end of the year, should be a part of every speech and every upcoming debate, although it won't be.  It should be, not just because it means we are a gargantuan debtor, but because its annual increase -- shoot, its every-moment increase -- is, itself, the topic.

That increase means that our government is overspending our revenues by even more than the principal we are paying on that debt, with no end in sight.  We are doing so because the Federal government has made itself ever larger, committed to purchases and payments ever greater, without an apparent shred of regard for how it can be paid.

Let me give you an idea.  In this past year's approximate three and a half trillion dollars that the federal government spent, was $223 billion on what is politely called "debt service."  That figure is only the interest on that debt, mind you; the principal is a totally different payment that we never seem to make (the creditors apparently just let the government roll those notes over).

So 6% of our entire Federal budget, bloated as it is, is simply going to pay the interest on money we had to borrow from friendly places like China -- to pay for the fact that the government spent hundreds of billions a year before the current year above what it took in.

I struggle to use the pronoun "we" when talking about the Federal government; I hope you can sense that.  I feel so terribly disconnected from Washington, as if I'm simply not being heard and not being represented.  I just had to say that so I can continue to use "we" -- fewer keystrokes and I'm lazy.

As a nation, we can only tax the citizenry so much before we depress entrepreneurship, limit transactions and crush the national spirit.  We have passed that, in case you were wondering.  So there is essentially a limit on how much revenue can be seized in taxation without harming the essential economic freedom of Americans.  You can't just fix the debt by deciding to raise taxes and expect to get enough back to pay for the excessive government.

So this is my plea.

Dear Candidates:

Our government is leaving my children a legacy of debt that their taxes cannot possibly pay back.  As a nation, we do not have the wherewithal to pay for the government we have even now.  You must make the reduction of Federal spending to what we take in -- a balanced budget -- an incredible priority of your administration if you are elected.

You must, in fact, make a priority the pay-down of the principal on that debt so that we are not continuing to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in annual interest payments, literally, forever.

You must do a complete analysis, agency by agency, of what we are spending and raise your bar as to what is actually affordable.  Remember that the Constitution guides your cleaver; unless that document mandates some service as a Federal obligation -- such as the national defense, the currency, the post office, interstate commerce -- that such agency's very existence needs to be evaluated, and you need the moral courage, leadership and commitment to the well-being of the citizenry to be able to say "we are closing that agency."

If you even say that you want to do that, no really, just say you want to do that, I will consider casting my vote for you.

Remember that we are in God-awful debt.  Memento debto, or something like that.  I couldn't have passed Latin; I think Caesar is a salad.

But you get the idea.  Please, Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton.  Talk about it.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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