Let’s play a game. I just gave you a million dollars with the caveat that you have to spend it in 24-hours.
OOOOHHHH – I like this game!
Pay off the house. Buy a new car. Buy a boat. Buy a cabin in the mountains. Maybe a new camper. Get out of debt.
Some of you are good, too. You’d give it to charity. Set aside money for your kids/grandkids education. Set up a scholarship fund. Invest it. Open a business.
Regardless of how you would spend it, my guess is that you could and (here comes the fun part) you would have something to show for it.
Duh. Of course you would have something to show for it. You would have a lot to show for it. Some of you would have something shiny with new car smell.
But what about the federal government?
It’s way more than a million bucks of your money that the feds spend annually. It’s somewhere in the range of $7.8 trillion. A trillion is a lot. In fact, a trillion is a million millions. So our aforementioned exercise would have to be completed 7.8 million times. But what do the feds have to show for it?
Is our society better? Do we trust our institutions? Is our border secure? Do we have shiny new tanks? Planes? A sparkling new aircraft carrier or two? The best education system on the planet?
The government now adds $1 trillion in debt every 100 days. What do they have to show for it? We hear that Denver Mayor Johnston is trying to find a solution to the out of control homeless problem plaguing his sanctuary city. The feds could buy every single one of the 42,000 illegal aliens estimated to be in Denver a shiny new $750,000 home and spend only $31.5 billion. That’s 1/31-st of a trillion. OR, you could buy 1.3 million illegal aliens a $750,000 home for $1 trillion. The feds print that up in 100 days.
Lets really go crazy. We could buy each and every one of the 16.8 million illegal aliens in the United States a shiny, new $750,000 for $12.6 trillion. Which is less than half of our $31.5 trillion national debt, or about what the feds will print up in the next 3.5 years. Hey, at least we’d have something to show for it.
Right now, the feds have squat to show.
Of course, I am not suggesting we actually do this.
I am just giving you a hypothetical of what we could do with your money (and your kids’ money, and your grand kids’ money, and your great grand kids’ money) that the federal government spends with reckless abandon. Here’s an idea. Stop spending it.
Since I am on a roll…
The federal government has spent approximately $5.2 trillion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. $6.4 billion of that was received by foreign recipients. What do we have to show for it?
I know that’s a lot of zeros, but I can still do basic math. We’re spending more than we’re taking in. In the James household, that’s a bad thing. We stop it. Immediately. So why don’t we demand that of our federal government?
Trump printed money. Biden printed more. And what do we the people have to show for it?
So what has triggered this special tirade?
I heard a fact on a talk show that I couldn’t believe to be true. So I researched it. Sadly, it’s true.
The nation’s largest expenditure is Social Security. Our second largest expenditure is health care.
What’s our third largest expenditure? National Defense? Public Safety? Border security? Education? Transportation and infrastructure? Assistance programs? Nope to all.
Our third largest expenditure is interest payments on our national debt. It will likely by number two by year’s end.
Who makes money on interest payments? Banks. Who loses? We, the people.
What do we have to show for it?
