American Debt, a perspective

March 23, 2010 by Cato the Elder.

A few days ago, I read something on the Cracked.com website.  Since that’s a humor site, I decided to look it up before posting it here, and I have found that it’s pretty much accurate, which scares me.

Here it is, in a nutshell:

The National Debt (amount of money owed by the United States) is around 15 trillion dollars.  That’s 15,000,000,000,000.00.  Let’s say we decided to pay that off.  We could go around to every bank, every home, and all of the foreign banks and homes in the world, and collect every dollar there is, all the currency and coins that exist in the whole world.  We would then need to take that unimaginable pile of money to Las Vegas, go to the roulette tables and bet it on Black, win, let it ride, win again, let it ride, win again, let it ride, and win again in order to have enough to pay off our debt.

Most people, when in financial trouble, imagine either “hitting it big in Vegas” or “having all the money in the world” as a solution to their problems.  When you need both, you’re pretty much screwed.

If we continue on the path we’re on, the interest on the national debt will grow to become higher than the Gross Domestic Product.  That would be the equivalent of a person having so much debt that the interest (not minimum payments, just interest) on his credit cards each month was higher than his take-home pay.  If you were on that path in your personal finances, wouldn’t you want to stop charging your way through life before you were too far in debt to ever recover?

What we need now in this country is a Congress that will simply stop buying votes with public money.  I don’t think either of the major parties are willing to do what it takes to stop the runaway government spending, but the Democrats are in charge now, and we should work hard to make sure they are driven out in November.  Maybe, if we hand them a big loss, they will start to understand that we don’t want their programs, and maybe, if we put a Republican majority in the House and Senate, and the White House, after having all three held by Democrats, it will be a strong enough message that people are tired of “business as usual.”

Personally,I don’t think it will.  I think it will be a good start, but I don’t think the Republicans will have the courage to repeal Obamacare and cut off earmarks, let alone prohibit government growth and borrowing.  If When they don’t do those things, it will be time, then, for a third party to rise and take over.

So, for the next two, or maybe three, election cycles, I will be strongly supporting the GOP.  After that, I will do whatever it takes to get this nation back on the path it started on over 200 years ago.  It will be a long, hard fight, but it’s one we have to win.

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