Congressional Democrats have proposed sweeping new legislation designed to address all manner of American woes. Cost is not a factor. And yes, before you get too excited, this is not a problem for Dems alone. Republicans are just as guilty.
This propensity to throw unlimited taxpayer dollars at each problem, real or manufactured, does raise one troubling question: how is Washington going to pay for all of this?
At some point, the piper will have to be paid. Borrow more money? Sure, just keep raising the debt ceiling. Raising the debt ceiling avoids default on our national debt, so everybody should be happy, right? Maybe not.
That has been done a whopping 74 times since 1962. Unfortunately, doing this fuels inflation and simply kicks the can down the road. Let some other generation fix the problem. Party on!
Our national debt now stands at more than 31 trillion dollars. Write that on a piece of paper, including all the zeros. You will see that we are not talking chump change. Bet you wish you could pay your household bills this way.
Congress has another way to address this pesky problem: raise taxes. They have to tread lightly on this tactic, though. Taxpayers vote.
This, you guessed it, leads to the tried-and-true rally cry: “Make the rich pay their fair share!”
Surely, that is safe and won’t cost too many votes. “The Rich” are some nebulous demographic. We know they are out there somewhere but separate from you and me. Most of us would shrug and say, “I am not rich; so, go ahead and whack those bad guys.”
But hold on. This solution, like so many others coming out of Washington, is flawed. There are simply too few super wealthy individuals in this country to support such a fantasy.
Okey, forget taxation. Instead try confiscating the entire wealth of the ten richest Americans. Would that solve the problem? Nope. Not even close. Doing that would raise only 1.2 Trillion dollars, less than 4 tenths of one percent of the national dept.
So, what can a creative Congressman do? The answer is simple. Create more billionaires. Yes, pay attention Bernie and Elizabeth. The numbers don’t lie. The only way to continue your profligate spending is to increase the pool of fools whose money can be confiscated to support the fanciful spending programs currently on the table.
We are so lucky to have Washington there to solve our problems. Tax more and print more money. Saves us from actually having to do something ourselves.