America is over 14 Trillion dollars in debt. If the US was a person we would be worst off than Nicolas Cage, loosing all his possessions and having to take every small acting role he can get.
Even with this massive debt looming above our heads, the current administration desires to dig ourselves deeper and take out an additional loan of 2.4 Trillion dollars. Their claim is that it is necessary to keep us afloat and keep the country from grinding to a complete halt.
What they fail to realize is that by doing this they are essentially making our currency more and more worthless. When you are in debt, the solution isn't to take out more loans and keep paying the minimum balance. The solution is to cut out all unnecessary spending and find new ways of generating revenue. Both solutions are unpopular, because none of the poor want their welfare check to stop and none of the wealthy want their taxes to be raised.
Because social welfare programs are such an important rhetoric tool for the Democratic party and keeping taxes low a rallying tool for the Republicans, neither is willing to concede on either issue. As opposed as I am to raising taxes, much of it is because those taxes go towards paying for people to live off the government instead of joining the rest of us as productive members of society. It is for this reason that I think the first step towards eliminating our country's debt is to eliminate the majority of these services and limit them to only the most vulnerable members of society (i.e. children without parents, the elderly without family, and those that are mentally handicapped). Able-bodied citizens should not be able to reap these services, especially those that are not here legally.
The next step is to examine the budget of all governmental agencies, there is waste everywhere, even in programs as important as education and the military. Between scrubbing these agencies free of wasteful spending and eliminating the majority of social welfare, the US would spend much less per year, and at least quit adding more debt the deficit.
Next comes the tricky step for fiscal conservatives like myself, increasing revenue. Sure we can quit adding to our debt by spending collective dollars wisely, but we must also get ourselves out of the hole that we are in. This means, finding new ways of raising state dollars, much of which would have to be done through some sort of taxation.
Now Im a big believer in the Laffer Curve and believe that taxation strongly discourages ingenuity. It leaves employers less willing to expand and hire more employees and it makes it less lucrative to take risks and do something great. This being said, I also believe that having a 14 Trillion dollar national deficit makes our country much less competitive and will only continue to cripple us as the marketplace becomes even more globalized.
Tax increases need to be used only sparingly and for good causes. I think most fiscal conservatives would agree that eliminating the US deficit is a good cause and would over time produce a favorable business climate that would compensate for this period of increased taxation.
In addition to these steps, action would also need to be taken at the legislative level to propose both a both a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution and to establish term limits for every level of office. Politicians too often look out for themselves, instead of looking out for the people they represent. With term limits, politicians are forced to do all they can in one term, without having to worry about campaigning or being reelected. By default, it makes them less crooked and less able to be bought.
I have ignored a lot of factors in drafting this very rudimentary vision of what a solution to the national deficit could be. However, someone needs to stand up and make some radical changes or our economy will collapse. It is better to weather the storm and have a few hard years, then to sign away the future of this country and the future of my generation with it.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage." -- Author Unknown
