Government Spending and The Nation’s Debt

        As of this morning our national debt was $15,796,333,964,878.  Each citizen’s share is $50,440.  Each taxpayer’s share is $138,799.  The national debt has continued to increase an average of $3.93 billion per day since September 28,2007.

        When President Obama took office on January 20, 2009 the national debt was $10,626,877,048,913.  That is an increase of  over four trillion dollars since he took office.  This is a 49% increase in just over 40 months.  I am not totally blaming President Obama.  Congress is just as much at fault.  The fact that Congress has not passed a budget in over three years is appalling.

        Here is what our founding fathers thought of government spending and debt.

“Government spending?  I don’t know what it is all about.  I don’t know any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he doesn’t know much.” - Will Rogers            

Will Rogers is not a founding father, but I like him.  He obviously is talking about a Keynesian economist.

“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” – Thomas Jefferson

       

        What would Jefferson think of today’s behemoth federal government? 

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare…The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.” – James Madison

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” – Benjamin Franklin

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation.  One is by the sword.  The other is by debt.” - John Adams

 “I, however, place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared.  To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.  If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labors and in our amusements.  If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.” - Thomas Jefferson

        Thomas Jefferson has to be one of my favorite Presidents and one of our greatest founding fathers.  The intelligence and foresight they showed is amazing.  They had it all covered. 

        Too bad we keep trying to reinvent the wheel and show them wrong.  We keep proving them right and don’t seem to have the intelligence to learn from history. 

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.  It is a sign that the US government cannot pay it’s own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally.  Leadership means the buck stops here.  Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.  Americans deserve better.” – Senator Barack Obama, March 2006   

Certainly not a founding father, but I agree with the statement.  What happened? 

Has this country become so self-centered that we are willing to jeopardize the future of our children and grandchildren with current government spending and growing government debt?  I hope and pray we are waking up to the problem, recognizing the problem, and dealing with the problem.