“Debt is the slavery of the free.”
Publilius Syrus

America, have we lost our freedom?

In 30 out of the last 35 years, America as a nation has been living out of debt in deficit. To put this into perspective, it’s like a person who has maxed out all their credit cards and ruined their credit score, yet they continue to apply for new credit cards to keep up their life style of brand name clothes, IPhone 4s, and HD flat screen TVs  for 30 years.

In that time period there have been incumbents in office for periods of 10, 20, 30 years in a row, the same people allowing our debt to go over $15 TRILLION… In fact just yesterday it was reported that at least 4 representatives in congress received deals on loans from one of the main loaning banks known to have caused the foreclosure crisis in America through subpar loans. [http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/story/2011-12-19/congress-discounted-loans-countrywide/52065930/1] Why do we continue to do the same thing and expect different results?

I view American debt like I view an obese person. A person who refuses to take the healthy and correct way to a better life… You see the road to losing weight and getting in shape is not an easy one, let alone pretty. American debt, like an obese person has tried time and time again to take those diet pills and yo-yo dieting by allowing tax exemptions, unnecessary programs, and taking funds from elsewhere, only to realize at the end it was to no avail. In order for an obese person to truly get in shape is to take away some things they enjoy and add some things they detest, i.e. take away junk food/physical apathy and add exercise/a healthy diet. In order for our debt to truly be tackled we must take away things we enjoy and add things we detest, i.e. take away programs that were meant to be a one-time thing but have now become ingrained in our minds as a ‘right’ and add taxes in appropriate areas.

It may not sound fun, it may not be easy, and it may seem like a scene from ‘The Biggest Loser’ when the contestants initially begin their excruciating workouts weighing 300+ lbs., but it is necessary. Our American debt is full of clogged arteries, onset of type II diabetes, and on the brink of a life threatening stroke/heart attack. If we do not get in shape, and do it now, we will surely perish…

For those who may be ignorant of how we have been running the show here’s just a few points in how ridiculously we’ve allowed things to get out of control:

Short-term programs have inexplicably become long-term programs due to incumbents fearing public retaliation. Rather than raise taxes to fund these now long-term programs, congress has rather allowed TAX CUTS to become a norm. This then creates the question, where is the money to fund these programs coming from, because they’re obviously NOT coming from the American public? We have allowed congress to dip into the one tax that was in surplus for a long time, Social Security and the like, basically giving these funds an “IOU” for a later date. The Social Security surplus would have been the amount necessary to carry the burden of retiring Baby Boomers. However, now only existent in “IOU”s from Congress, there are not enough taxes to cover the costs of Baby Boomers and the long-term programs effectively.

So what do have we done in response to this crisis? We have sold our souls to the Devil. We allow other countries and corporations to buy entire stretches of highways and American land (what do you think toll roads are for?), we sell government bonds overseas rather than keep it in the family (today China and Japan alone carry the most assets of U.S. debt), and we continue to ruin our credit by just printing money (does anyone remember how that turned out in Germany? They ended up using their currency as fuel for warmth during their winters because it was so useless and worthless).

America, we are on a road to destruction. I do not celebrate this “bi-partisan” deal that was made last week, where congress extended tax cuts… No I tremble with the realization that an empire is burning to the ground and no one is doing anything to save it.

We must stop putting a band-aid on cancer expecting it to heal itself.