Our national debt hit $36.8 trillion on Tuesday, even as Congress seems reluctant to make any major cuts to our increasingly unsustainable federal spending.
As of around 8 p.m. EST on May 13, the national debt was $36,845,992,857,025. That sound you hear is the Founding Fathers turning in their graves. It’s hard for most of us to wrap our minds around that sum, since we never have to deal with even $1 million. And yet that debt is our debt, even if we didn’t vote for or spend it, because the federal government can only obtain money by taking ours and has reached this point by spending far beyond what we can pay off, for which we taxpayers are still left on the hook. No wonder our dollar lost 25% of its value between 2020 and 2024.
Economist EJ Antoni emphasized recently, “Interest on the federal debt was over $101 billion in Apr - just for interest! No roads and bridges, no healthcare, no mili[t]ary spending, no schools or hospitals...”
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Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) posted in response on May 12, “Congress has failed the American people. Both parties are to blame. The future of our country is directly linked to our ability to muster up enough courage to wrestle down the national debt.”
At this point, we’re not even trying. The budget proposal from earlier this year was essentially the Biden budget with a little dressing up and relatively minor cuts.
Rep. Josh Breechen (R-Okla.) seems to agree with his colleague. “Here’s why we need to address reckless spending and our national debt,” he said, with a short list:
- Interest rates are soaring, making it impossible to buy a home.
- Private fortunes are being destroyed by government’s lack of fiscal restraint.
- Our $36 trillion national debt is growing with no end in sight.
Beechen is right to predict, “There is real pain ahead if we don't get serious about America’s economic future.”
Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy observed on Saturday, “The greatest risks to American exceptionalism are our national debt crisis & our educational achievement crisis. Both were self-inflicted & both are still solvable (for now). But it’s going to require real courage.” I would also add our moral crisis, but then again the two other crises are connected to our moral disintegration.
Excessive spending is driven by corruption, selfishness, and irresponsibility in our elected representatives and by selfish entitlement, greed, and laziness among some voters — all of which are moral flaws. The educational crisis likewise has similar contributing sins. Americans now are taught to believe they are owed success, pleasure, and money at others’ expense, regardless of their own merit or hard work. And for those of us who choose to work hard and be honest, so much the worse for us — we must fund the lazy ingrates. If the Founding Fathers could see our welfare state, how horrified they would be!
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of useless government agencies, thousands of government programs, and hordes of unconstitutional jobs to slash. Congress needs to start doing its job, or Republicans will further our careen toward fiscal collapse and earn a midterm election loss that would give Democrats the powers of impeachment and the purse.
