Self-Immolation by Profligacy
The federal debt, your share, is about $100,000.
By Mark W. Fowler
“Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction." —John Jay
The current federal deficit excluding the obligations of Social Security and Medicare is over $33 trillion. The annual cost to service that debt is $695 billion according to the Congressional Office of Management and Budget. The ratio of debt to GDP now exceeds 120%. Think of the situation this way: A family making $75,000 per year owes $93,000, and the interest cost to service that debt is 4%, or $3,600 per year. Every year they increase their debt rather than paying it off.
Kimberly Amadeo in The Balance reports that the debt as a percentage of GDP went from 60% to 124% in 20 years. A number of economic studies suggest that as the debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 70%, economic growth suffers, if for no other reason than it soaks up precious and scarce capital.
Republican Senator James Lankford (OK) is a serious man who is concerned about the deficit. Moreover, he is serious about the manner in which frivolity supplants seriousness in governmental spending. In service to the country, he has published Volume 7 of "Federal Fumbles,” which reports on federal expenditures that have contributed to the debt burden Americans face. The following examples (there are more) represent the frivolity with which the U.S. government spends your money. Kudos to Sen. Lankford for publishing these.
Consider, then, given our present climate of support for two foreign wars, an immigrant crisis, and the pending insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, whether these expenditures warranted taking money from the pockets of Americans:
- $20,000 for the State Department to fund twelve drag queen shows in Ecuador.
- $66,000 to fund a book titled “Mexican Soundscapes of the Colonial Era.” This book described the use of sound as a disciplinary force in the hands of Mexican officials to impose order.
- $1,000,000 for a Splash pad park in Center Line Michigan.
- $1,000,000 for the Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland.
- $4,000,000 to close a gap in a pedestrian trail in Napa Valley.
- $138,000 for European scientists to study butterflies.
- $181,000 to sponsor a conference for twenty-six middle and high school teachers to discuss the Salem witch trials.
In 2022, President Biden released $36 billion to help the ailing Central States pension fund. This fund covers 350,000 pensioners and the cost was about $102,000 per pensioner.
How much did your 401(k) decline after Biden took office, and what help did you get from the federal government?
On top of this, Biden proposes student loan debt relief (the total of which is about one trillion dollars) for students who now have college degrees they feel are not worth the money they borrowed to pay for them. The students with the largest debts tend to be individuals working for advanced degrees who will make more money than the average wage earner. No small business owners or families with medical debt will get that relief.
Sen. Lankford offers some more perspective on the amount of money involved: One million seconds is 12 days. One billion seconds is 32 years. One trillion seconds is 32,000 years. Again, the federal debt is $33 trillion.
If you are not sufficiently offended by the above examples, then consider this:
In a simple white room in a museum in Springfield, Missouri, there is the “Yoko Ono: Mend Piece” exhibit. In this exhibit are broken cups and saucers that observers can mend using twine, glue, scissor, and tape. The resulting works are on display. The cost to U.S. taxpayers was $25,000.
The federal debt, your share, is about $100,000.
