As the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) topic consumes our news cycle, some media and the public focus more on attacking the messengers than the message. We are 37 trillion dollars in debt, our ‘Entitlement Programs’ are on the verge of total collapse, and we didn’t get here overnight or because of one political party.
When we discuss our country’s debt and continued deficit spending, the value of our national currency is as real as Monopoly money—that is, it is worthless beyond the game’s rules. And the rules of our nation’s ‘debt crisis game’ are rigged against the American taxpayer.
The average American could not tell the difference between debt and deficit in terms of our country’s approach to fiscal stability and budgetary competence. Most people know our country is beyond insolvent, but ignorance is bliss, and our ignorance is what most politicians hope for; it is the cornerstone of the game’s rules.
Our elected representatives and unelected bureaucrats not only expect our willingness to suspend belief in our fiscal crisis but also count on our inherent human tendency to be selfish. Social Security is just one example of how our government establishes rules only to break or change them without regard to its commitments to the American people.
The taxpayers were forced to play by the rules, believing that our elected officials would be good stewards of our tax dollars. It started when you were forced to pay into Social Security, a poorly conceived Ponzi scheme designed for people with an average lifespan of 61 years for men and 65 years for women. The failures we see with Social Security continue in almost every other federal program created to “help” us.
The designers of Social Security believed that they would receive more money than they would have to pay out. But human and communal evolution has a way of wreaking havoc on government planners’ best plans.
The government set the rules for 1935 America. But over time, the population exploded, medical advances increased our life expenses, the government arbitrarily expanded those ‘qualified’ for benefits to include people with little to no investment in the system, our birth rate dwindled below the ‘replacement rate,’ and then the government started ‘to borrow’ from Social Security with the ‘promise of repayment (with interest).’
In Monopoly, when you ‘Pass Go,’ you get 200 dollars; why? Because that is the rule. When you pay into Social Security, you get a monthly check. Why? Because that is the rule you believed in, and when the government told you that Social Security would fund itself, they lied to us.
This is where righteous selfishness comes into play and why DOGE was an awakening call nobody wanted to hear. Many Americans are angry about the risk of not receiving a Social Security payment, citing the familiar refrain, “I paid into Social Security; I have earned that money.”
It does not matter to the taxpayer that, on average, most people receive more Social Security benefits over their lifetime than they pay through payroll taxes. The same holds for Medicaid and Medicare.
We do not care that we are 37 trillion in debt, and regardless of what the ‘experts’ say, the Social Security Fund has been in a death spiral for decades.
We have been warned that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are all on the verge of breaking. And yet, when a politician suggests we must fix it, we break out the pitchforks and attack. It is beyond comprehension for most that a ‘powerful nation’ such as the United States of America could be financially broke already. Why? Because that was not part of the rules.
For the sake of this conversation, I have rounded our debt up by a few million to 37 trillion dollars. Part of the reason many Americans have a difficult time grasping what they know is genuine is that the truth is incomprehensible. Saying we are 37 trillion dollars in DEBT to people has about as much impact as handing them a stack of Monopoly money. It’s not real.
One trillion seconds is 31,688 years. That’s real.
One trillion pennies would be 10 billion dollars. That is real.
If you had spent 1 million dollars a day since Jesus was born, you would have only spent 739,125,000,000 (seven hundred thirty-nine billion one hundred twenty-five million). That is real.
37,000,000,000,000 (37 trillion dollars) in debt is real, yet most Americans choose to ignore it, except for a few.
Depending on the policies implemented and the will of the people and the politicians, eliminating the debt could take decades, even up to a century. It could take five generations of Americans to pay down this debt.
Paying down a $37 trillion debt would require a long-term combination of substantial budget surpluses, achieved through increased tax receipts and a massive reduction in government spending.
Sadly, DOGE is the result, frankly, the creation of a Congress that failed to do its job and ‘control the purse strings.’ Congress lacks the courage to say ‘no,’ and it is fearful of the people they made false promises to, promises that clearly will never be fulfilled.
So, you see DOGE is a blunt instrument, and contrary to what the same people who helped create this mess may be saying, it is too late for a scalpel.
The people reading this column will not be alive to see this debt eliminated. Still, this generation must set a plan in motion so that our failed fiscal policies will not burden future generations. We need to put our earned selfishness aside, stop attacking the messengers, listen to the message, and act.
