Publisher's Note: One of the most significant things you can do to promote Liberty is to support our mission. Please make your gift to the 2024 Patriots' Day Campaign today. Thank you! —Mark Alexander, Publisher

March 23, 2013

Why Not Just Put the Entire Federal Budget on Credit?

Let’s finally open our arms really wide and embrace our massive debt, swiping the big government credit card to pay all our bills.

The sequester is far too devastating for America to bear. Already the White House has had to stop giving tours, and who knows how it will escalate from there? Maybe next they’ll cancel the Easter Egg Roll, or close the mineral exhibit at the Smithsonian. Or reduce operating hours at the Washington Monument bookstore. Soon there will be nothing left to do in D.C. but go to the visitors’ gallery at the Capitol building and shout at the politicians down below.

A mere $85 billion cut has caused all this agony, yet the federal deficit has been over $1 trillion for each of the past four years. Maybe it’s time to admit we’ll never stop running huge deficits. The majority of our spending comes from entitlements, and we can’t cut those because people are, by definition, “entitled” to them. That means it doesn’t matter what math and reason say, we have to continue to pay for them. Thus an increased national debt each year is inevitable. But so what?

Think about it: We’re past $16 trillion in debt so far, and we’re just fine. We have a pretty good scheme going to keep up the level of government we want: We take big loans from our children and then die before paying them back. And we have no reason to stop. What’s the worst that has happened so far? America’s credit was downgraded. And that hurt us how? It’s not like people are going to stop giving the federal government loans – it has nukes. Plus, the president has asserted that he can take out anyone he wants with drone strikes whenever he feels like it (“Want to know who’s on my secret kill list? I’ll give you a hint: No one who loans us money.”). So that brings us to the obvious question: Why not just put the entire federal budget on credit?

Are we just being suckers paying taxes? The point of taxes is that someone needs to pay our government’s bills, but considering the amount of debt we’ve run up with no problem, maybe that’s not true. It seems unfair that the politicians see no reason to cut spending, but we have to keep paying taxes like the federal deficit actually means something. So why not give our economy a big stimulus and just put all government operations on credit? The debt ceiling will now just be whatever numbers we actually have words for.

This should receive huge bipartisan support. Republicans don’t like taxes, Democrats don’t like spending cuts – so now we’ll have no taxes and no cuts. The only thing we’ll have is even more debt, and we can all just agree to stop pretending we care about that. How can it hurt us, anyway? Dollars are just made-up things. They used to represent gold we had in a vault somewhere or something, but now they’re just completely pretend numbers on a computer. Saying we owe 16 trillion dollars is like saying we owe 16 trillion unicorn farts. How will this “debt” ever harm us?

So let’s continue onward without fear and with a lot more money in our pockets. We’ll have generous entitlements that are completely tax-free, and the only problem will be some growing number no one really pays attention to. What could possibly happen? I guess some sort of complete economic collapse that takes the government and all of its entitlements down with it. But with the path we’ve taken for years, haven’t we already been betting that will never actually happen? So let’s finally open our arms really wide and embrace our massive debt, swiping the big government credit card to pay all our bills. We can celebrate by adding free roller coaster rides to the newly reopened White House tours.

Frank J. Fleming is the author of the books “How to Fix Everything in America Forever: The Plan to Keep America Awesome” and “Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything,” writes columns for PJ Media and the New York Post, blogs at IMAO.us, and reminds you that debt is just a made up thing that can’t hurt you, like Slender Man or Communists.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.