Let’s talk about long-term debt. Thrilling, I know, but also important because budget hawks are few and far between these days.
Americans currently sit idly by as Congress and the Biden administration are immersed in irresponsible spending.
Thanks to the federal government shutting down our economy last spring, the United States spent a record $6.5 trillion in 2020. And despite the COVID-19 pandemic being over from an economic perspective, Washington’s profligate endeavors won’t decrease.
The president recently released a $6 trillion budget proposal that made socialists perk up with excitement. With unconstitutional federal interference in local and state matters, it also offered unprecedented debt and economic tumult for years to come.
Democrats already pushed the $2 trillion “American Rescue Plan” through Congress this year on a party line vote via the “Reconciliation” procedure. Orwellian news then broke late last week that criminals may have stolen half the unemployment benefits in said legislation. Many of those who received the free cash, of course, decided to sit home and not look for work.
Within his unserious budget, Biden then rolled out the so-called “American Jobs Plan,” with a price tag of more than $2 trillion. It includes $300 billion to begin a “Green New Deal,” the Marxist pet project to destroy rural America, while effectively replacing much of our market economy with a government-controlled version. A better, truer infrastructure plan looks like this.
Finally, we have the “American Families Plan,” which asks for $1 trillion in new spending on several progressive wish-list items, like free childcare, paid family and medical leave, mandatory preschool, free community college, and worse. All this, as some reports show Americans are wealthier than ever.
Trillions in debt every year risks our financial well-being for decades to come and is a fiscal catastrophe for future generations of Americans.
Former governor and current Purdue University President Mitch Daniels knows this. He’s been a legendary budget cutter since his time in the Reagan and Bush II administrations and when leading Indiana from 2005-2013.
A decade ago, Daniels wrote a piece warning that our “terrifying rate” of national debt will have ruinous consequences. The debt was $15 trillion then; now it’s 28.
“It’s an incredibly unfair thing we are doing to succeeding generations, and our descendants should condemn us,” Daniels told The Dispatch last week. “People who profess to be most concerned about safety nets and income inequity are the very people destroying the systems we built to help avoid destitution. We are past a point where you can wish the problem away. We better get busy now mitigating it any way we can, so when reckoning comes, it’s as gentle as possible.”
Perhaps there are solutions. Have you heard of the “Congressional Power of the Purse Act “?
In a nutshell, the CPPA ensures money Congress appropriates is spent in a timely and proper manner, while increasing transparency, so we understand where, when, and how taxpayers’ dollars are spent.
CPPA is part of the Protecting Our Democracy Act (PODA), a series of reform bills introduced late last year. Unsurprisingly, not all PODA relates to fiscal responsibility, but some reinforce Congress’s authority over spending matters.
Let’s get serious. While debt may bore recent college graduates, government workers or those receiving pensions, the preponderance of Americans should care.
A.J. Kaufman
A.J. Kaufman is an Alpha News columnist. His work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Indianapolis Star, Israel National News, Orange County Register, St. Cloud Times, Star-Tribune, and across AIM Media Midwest and the Internet. Kaufman previously worked as a school teacher and military historian.
