The Economy Isn’t Growing. The Government Is Just Adding Debt.

The media and Biden administration are trying to fool you with propaganda about economic growth. The reality is that the economy is in crisis and the only “growth” is government spending — that is, government debt.

Did the fourth quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) 2023 report actually show wonderful economic growth? Not when put in context. You see, all that “growth” is really government spending (taxpayer) money it doesn’t have. Every $1 of GDP growth cost taxpayers $1.69 in new debt. To observe that sort of “growth” isn’t sustainable is a massive understatement.

The above information and much more was shared by Brownstone Institute President Jeffrey A. Tucker in a commentary piece for The Epoch Times. He cited the Census Bureau to note that real wages are down, and added that unemployment is considered low but that could be deceptive. “It does not account for labor dropouts or adjust for multiple job holders or otherwise reveal anything about labor participation or remuneration,” Tucker explained.

As for GDP, it is not a measure of the standard of living or even economic growth. It is a measure of output—stuff going on as measured in dollar terms, whether necessary, productive, society serving, efficient, or not at all. The aggregate was concocted at a time when economists believed that spending was itself productive, whether it flowed from a sustainable capital base or government itself. Anything moving and churning was regarded as good.

Both Tucker and economist Peter St. Onge (quoted by Tucker) point out that the GDP report thus actually measures “‘the pace at which we’re going Soviet,’” or the pace at which we replace private productivity and wealth with wasteful government spending. “‘In the past 12 months the federal deficit increased by $1.3 trillion. Yet we only got half that in GDP — about $600 billion. In other words, everything else shrank. It’s even worse for that brave and stunning Q4 — there we got just $300 billion in extra GDP for — wait for it — $834 billion of new federal debt,’” Tucker quoted. Indeed, the Q4 increase in public U.S. debt was $834 billion, or an estimated 154% more than the GDP increase. Future American taxpayers will have to pay $957,100.48 for every new job we created!

The GDP report wasn’t good news; it was awful. Unless there are some serious reforms — and, unfortunately, both Republicans and Democrats seem uninterested in reigning in government spending — we could be headed for a collapse of historic proportions. We are being robbed of the American dream by our own government. We will see our quality of life decline; in fact, we already did during the economy-wrecking Covid-19 lockdowns.

The Biden administration is spurring economic crisis, and we can only hope new leadership takes over before it’s too late.