Today, it struck me why Congress is still on a spending spree and few seem worried about the debt they’re piling up. They’ve figured out what Americans have known and practiced in their own financial matters for decades; we don’t have to pay the debt back … ever.
I am astonished at how a normally deliberative Congress that struggles to get anything good done has suddenly become so effective at doing stupid things so quickly. There is too much being rammed through right now and the spending spree does not seem to be abating. Congress has discovered that it’s not the debt or the deficit that has any meaning, it’s the ability to service the debt.
Families across America, which by and large are conservative, have been carrying credit card and other debt for years. And as long as they could pay the interest, the money lenders were happy to allow them to incur more.
But then the meltdown happened and many families found themselves out of work (or their businesses crumbling), their money lender suddenly unable or unwilling to lend them any more, and their debt became too much to maintain in rocky times. And the same thing will happen to America shortly.
The administration and Congress are trying to spend their way out of this mess, hoping that by “stimulating” the economy, we can return the illusion of financial soundness to the public mindset. They figure that the government only has to service the debt in the short term and disingenuously claim we can begin pay principle back when the economy is roaring again.
There’s no real intention to pay back the principle.
The reason why is even the President recognizes we’re already out of money (hat tip to Hot Air) and yet he keeps spending. Moreover, there is a point of no return where the principle we owe causes the interest to become more than we can regularly pay. We have only one choice then, raise revenues or default.
The administration and Congress seem drunken on the idea that we can simply increase the debt as much as we want so long as America pays the interest. It’s no surprise I guess, American families have operated that way for decades.
And now that the economy has tanked, people are realizing they cannot get more credit because they cannot service the debt they already have and it is devastating their family. Those of us fortunate enough to still have jobs and see what’s going on are saving more, spending less, and trying to repay our debts as fast as possible.
The administration is steering America down the same road and Congress has floored the accelerator. We have to stop this before we crash. Because the difference is when it happens to an individual, it’s a tragedy that affects only the people involved. If we allow it to happen to America, it will devastate the world.
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