The media are reporting that if a governmental shutdown occurs, it will affect only “nonessential services and personnel.” Now, call me superficial, but I have a question:

At a time when we face a $1.4 trillion deficit this year alone, why are we funding anything or anyone that is admittedly “nonessential”?

I have been pondering an analogy that ought to be easy for anyone to grasp. Let’s compare the current congressional battle over federal spending with a hypothetical family feud over your own household budget.

Suppose you and your spouse are arguing about your finances. You have discovered, to your horror, that you are spending $1,400 per month over and above your total household income. Terrified, you inform your spouse that this is completely insane and unsustainable, and that it must stop immediately.

Your spouse nods in nominal agreement — but then digs in his or her heels against every single specific spending cut that you propose.

Knowing of your partner’s stubborn, spendthrift ways, you eventually propose just $100 in reduced spending. That would still have you falling behind each month by $1300, but at least it’s a start. However, your spouse is outraged and rejects the figure out of hand; it’s “draconian,” and would undermine the profligate lifestyle to which you’ve become accustomed.

You argue, and argue, and argue. Getting nowhere, and desperate for any point of agreement, you say: “Look, can’t we cut just $61 from our monthly spending? We both know that this won’t even make a dent in our obligations, but at least it might slow our rush toward bankruptcy, if only by a few days.”

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With the Federal government scheduled to shut down on April 8, Congress is not only debating where to spend trillions of dollars in the next fiscal year, but also whether to raise the roof, i.e. the debt ceiling.  The debt ceiling simply represents a cap on the total debt the U.S. government can hold, and it is currently set at a whopping $14.294 trillion.  Though the resolution for this limit was signed a mere year ago, we are quickly approaching the limit and should reach it sometime in the first week of April.  Keep in perspective that it would take more than 31,000 years of earning $1 a day to make a measly $1 trillion of the total debt. The government has added to the total debt every year since 1960 (except for two years).  Worse yet, it has added over $5 trillion in the past three and a half years alone.  Wouldn’t common sense indicate that there’s little room to borrow more?  Apparently not.

The reality is that many lawmakers want to “stabilize the debt” by increasing the debt ceiling.  Of course, you can’t stabilize trillions of dollars.  So essentially, the government ends up selling more bonds just to pay interest on the national debt and pay for new spending.  What’s a few more hundred billion when you already owe several trillion?

Often, to explain how we must increase the debt ceiling, government plays on one major fear – the fear of U.S. default.  Those in support of raising the debt ceiling argue that if it’s not increased the government will not be able to meet obligations.  They essentially say the country will go bankrupt.  To prevent this very issue, the debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since March 1963.  The problem with this rationale is that it’s like urging a boat to take on more water to keep it from sinking.  Imagine meeting with your financial planner and hearing him say, “In these tough financial times I recommend you add to your debt in order to stay solvent.”  I hope you would quickly find a new financial planner.

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At a time when the American taxpayer is on the hook for trillions in current and future federal spending—when the Congressional Budget Office warns that the current rate of federal spending is “unsustainable”—liberal Democrats in Congress have earmarked over $68 million of taxpayer dollars for a Boston shrine to the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

In a detailed report, the Boston Herald describes the planned Edward M. Kennedy Institute as a “temple for Ted Kennedy built with pork.”

According to their account, congressional Democrats—especially Massachusetts senators John Kerry and Edward Markey—have been cramming earmarks for the project into various government funding bills. The Herald found that Kerry and Markey even intend to siphon $28.9 million of the institute’s funding from the Defense Department budget, with almost $19 million of that amount already signed into law.

Why do they think taxpayers should be paying for this shrine? A statement from a Kerry spokesman declared that the institute will bring “knowledge and good citizenship to thousands of young people.”

This has raised the ire of taxpayer watchdog groups. “If the Kennedy family wants to honor the senator, they should find a way to fund it themselves,” David E. Williams of Citizens Against Government Waste told the newspaper. Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense agreed that “this could be independently funded and doesn’t need to be getting taxpayer dollars.”

Indeed.

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This week, the US federal debt surpassed the $12 Trillion threshold.

Congress will vote in December to extend America’s indebtedness above $12,100,000,000,000, necessitated because our national debt grew last year by more than $1,400,000,000,000 and will grow this year by $1,400,000,000,000. According to the Obama White House estimates, the national debt will continue to grow by more than $1 trillion for the next nine years.  Except it won’t…because it can’t. There just isn’t $9 Trillion to borrow.

For years we’ve heard about the immorality of putting this debt on our grandkids. Forget the grandkids, our economy is at grave risk of collapse right now!

The dollar is in free-fall. The Ponzi scheme Congress calls Social Security is about to collapse. Foreigners are beginning to balk at loaning the US government more money. That grave economic turmoil our debt and deficit will cause in the future? It’s here now.

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