Is America Going Broke?

Almost without exception, first-time candidates for office promise improvements in necessities such as health care, education, fighting crime or reducing taxes. The number one answer given when asked how they plan on doing that is that they will be able to afford such ambitious programs by cutting waste. When asked about the definition of “waste” they intend to cut, they get somewhat ambivalent. Usually they give a lecture about our nation’s creeping national debt. Many of them who give such lectures seem to have forgotten that they increased the national debt more than a trillion for more than a decade by voting for Donald Trump’s tax program, giving away billions of dollars to “fat-cat” corporations. They seem to agree with the argument that we are headed for socialistic government with programs like Social Security and Medicare

Given the courage there are a couple of ways we could take a big bite out of our country’s national debt right away. First it is estimated the debt to Internal Revenue is 404 billion dollars estimated by independent organizations. IRS estimates the same deficit as a trillion. This is true even in the face of the fact that our congress refuses to equip the IRS with enough agents and investigators to take tax cheaters to task. My dad, who was a stickler for paying for what you owed, would have been shocked at what we allow deadbeats to do were he alive today.

Another way to balance our national budget that fails for lack of courage and the thriving of hypocrisy is the fact that Congress is unable to levy a fair tax equal for everyone. Working people pay 35% of what they earn while most corporations pay 25% or less and unfortunately there are several multi-billion dollar corporations who pay nothing at all.

In any event, independent studies of financial experts demonstrate America will not go broke even at the rate that it is borrowing from itself. All we can do is pray that some modicum of hypocrisy along with our national debt goes away.