Our Federal Budget and Economic Freedom
We are deluged almost daily with messages on the mainstream media about “Bidenomics”—whatever that means—and the “great” financial successes our economy has enjoyed over the last 3 years. I am sure you are savvy enough to know such messaging is not rooted in reality. All you need to do is to check out your gas, rent, and food bills over the last year or simply dine out. The truth is that our country is weighed down with massive debt, and on a daily basis the majority of our government funding merely goes to offset economic disaster. The policies embraced by the Fed to try to deal with this massive debt negatively impact each of us every day. We need congressional representatives who understand that economic threat and who will work to change the budget process to address the overwhelming debt we face as a nation.
Part of the difficulty in trying to diagnose the problem are the very numbers involved. Who among us can begin to fathom what trillions or billions of dollars mean? Most of us draw a line at understanding a million at most; at least we can count 6 zeros in our favorite Pro athlete’s salary. The figures we hear are simply staggering. Our national debt (money we owe to others) stands at $34 trillion dollars; that is $34 followed by 12 zeros. Every year, with shocking irresponsibility, Congress raises that debt limit so we can send billions of dollars to other countries, last year, even including Iran and the PLO who are funding attacks on our military. Just trying to pay our own bills, we had a budget deficit in every month of 2023. Trace those numbers back a few years and you will see that such deficits are the norm not the exception. Who can even comprehend that? Annual interest alone owed on that staggering sum is $ 659,000,000,000.000. The frightening thing is that of that massive debt interest, $839.4 billion is owed to China. That is right, owed to our chief adversary in the world today.
Some of our elected officials have ceased even trying to fix the problem and have thrown up their hands in despair. Many admit never even reading the 1000’s of pages of documents compiled during each budget session. Deficit reduction and budget process realignment will be one of my principal interests. In 2023, total US government spending was $6.13 trillion, and our total revenue was just $4.44 trillion, resulting in an additional deficit of almost $1.70 trillion. In FY 2023, for example, with the millions of illegal individuals streaming across our wide-open borders, the percentage of non-taxpayers will only increase, while our national debt continues to rise. That unconscionable debt hits all of us on our credit cards, home mortgages, automobile purchases, and other large expenditures. That must end immediately. I will consistently vote for bills that reduce not increase our deficit.
What does that mean to you and me? Our US population as of 2023 was 339,996,563. Of that number, only 48%, 165,000,000 individuals, were taxpayers; that is right 175,996,563 adults are not taxpayers. If we were to pay off the national debt today, each American taxpayer would get a bill for over $206,000.00. How would that affect you? Perhaps more frightening is if our debt were called in today, just to pay the existing interest owed on that debt, each taxpayer would owe an additional $3,993,940.00. Like I suggested earlier, who can even comprehend those numbers. We have mortgaged our future, and the 74 million children under the age of 21 in our country will have to bear the economic freight for years to come. Our children and grandchildren will suffocate under such an economic burden. Something has to change, and I want to be your elected change agent to make that happen.
What is the answer? What is demanded is a complete realignment of our budget process. How it works today is that whenever the budget process begins, our Congress starts with the previous year’s budget as a starting point. If we spent X dollars last year, next year we will budget X+. All that means is that year after year, the federal budget is destined to increase, never decrease. I am a fierce advocate of moving to ZBB—Zero-based Budgeting, an efficient and money saving process used by several Fortune 500 companies, such as Nestle, Unilever, and Coca Cola. Under such a budgeting process each cost element must be justified each year. Nothing can be hidden from the process. Nothing can be hidden from you. This budget method is a top-down process with an emphasis on transparent decision making throughout. It emphasizes resource optimization and eliminates waste.
From day one in my term of office, I will build a coalition to move toward that ZBB budgeting process with like-minded representatives who want to be fierce advocates for your and the country’s economic independence. A consistent Balanced Budget will be my goal. Once we get there, just watch the numbers fall.
Photo Credit: Carol M. Highsmith