At this moment, the United States federal debt stands at a crushing $20,498,113,600,000. Let that sink in. 45.3% of Americans pay no federal tax, meaning that only 111 million Americans pay any income tax at all (note that the current population of the United States is currently 326 million).
Let’s do the math. If we divide $20.5T by 111M Americans, each contributing American need pay $184,286 in order to pay off the current deficit. Each year, this number grows larger, not smaller. Over the next decade, Washington is on track to rack up another $11T, putting the total debt well over $30T.
But this isn’t even the bad news.
Far worse is the fact that the United States currently carries $134,827,980,000,000 in unfunded liabilities. Unfunded liabilities represent the disparity between what the government expects to spend versus what it expects to earn. One author suggests that in order to stem this tide, the US would have to raise income taxes by 17%, raise payroll taxes by 24%, and cut federal spending by 26%. Today. Not in ten years.
Unfunded liabilities represent a topic that Washington politicians don’t like to focus on. Indeed, looking more than a few years out (lets be honest…days/months) is utterly against their political religion. The notion that we should be worried at all about the finances of the Union a few decades out will be decried by many as silly and needlessly alarmist.
After all–we won’t be around. The burden will fall to our children.
Texans…our ultimate civic responsibility is to ensure the political and economic freedom of our children, and there is no freedom to be had in a society that has spent at least two future generations so deeply in debt that they will have to be taxed at 50% or more.
There is no magic bullet. There is no trick that will get us out of this one. Eventually, the US will default on its debts, its credit rating will be slashed, and the value of the dollar will plummet. Citizens will clamor for relief and there will most certainly be folks offering “hope and change.” If history has taught us anything it is that the quickest way out of any debt is to terminate the debtor.
Thus, Texas will get a new government…one way or another. For the sake of our children, let it be one of our choosing.
TEXAS FOREVER!
