By Jim Heffernan
Finding truth is difficult. Contrasting messages swirl about continuously. Inspired by the book, “The Scout Mindset” by Julia Galef, I’ve volunteered to be a scout for the community. I am looking for truth. I have some qualifications, but I’m not infallible. If you think I’ve been decieved, please let me know. Maybe it takes more than one scout to ferret out the truth. The threats that face us can only be dealt with if we know the truth.
This is a problem that I became aware of in 1986. Our national debt reached $1 TRILLION dollars in 1982. It took 206 years and multiple wars to reach that threshold. Four years of Ronald Reagan doubled it in 1986. I expected that performance would give Democrats political capital they could use for years. It turned out Democrat presidents piled on national debt just as badly as Republican presidents. Today it stands at $39 trillion dollars. Forty years have added $37 trillion dollars to our debt.
We should be prudent about how we balance expenses and revenues, but we love tax cuts more than we value our children’s future, even when the tax cuts mainly benefit those with high incomes.
Some call it a “national debt bomb” and I agree with that outlook. It’s not clear if it will explode when it hits $44 trillion or $55 trillion. Its effects are sneakier than that. It starts when American bonds start to lose their credit rating. (Moody and Fitch have already reduced their ratings for American bonds.) Then rising interest rates drive inflation to painful levels. Finally, America becomes a poor nation.
We are on a slow but certain path to our own ruin. We ignore this danger because it benefits the rarefied few of us at the top of the economic pyramid.
Logic tells me the accuracy of this assessment is very high.
Discussion welcome at codger817@gmail.com