We Went Over the Cliff A Long Time Ago

I haven't written anything highly political in a long time, but I feel compelled to write something about the so-called "fiscal cliff" our government just drove over last night, taking us with them like the proverbial Thelma and Louise.

The problem that I think most people don't understand is that we went over the fiscal cliff a long time ago, but we just didn't realize it. We didn't realize it for a couple of reasons. The first is that the amounts of money we are talking about simply are unimaginable to us. One Trillion dollars...what is that really? $1,000,000,000,000.00. Can you really imagine that? Multiply it by 16, nearly 17 now since that is our national debt. What does that number mean to you? It's too big to be concrete.

The second reason is that we haven't felt it the size of this national debt yet, really. I mean, as long as credit is available, then we can keep spending what we as a nation are currently spending, and no one feels the pinch. But this is unsustainable. The problem is, we really don't understand that it is unsustainable until we can no longer obtain the things for which we are paying.

The third is that the dollar has been divorced from its value. A long time ago, the dollar was separated from "the gold standard." The gold standard was when this amount of gold was worth this amount of dollars. The government only printed as much paper money as there was gold to back it up. This is no longer the case. Now the government prints paper money without reference to any other object of value. The dollar has itself become the object value against which we measure the dollar.

I think it is important to put these ideas into concrete, understandable terms.

Let's say that a married couple's income is approximately $5,000 per month. That would give this couple an annual income of $60,000.00. This would make them a middle class family. Let's say they are spending, on average, $7,500 per month. So they are spending what they take in plus another 50% of their earnings. In order to sustain this, they are borrowing $0.50 of every dollar they earn. They get this through multiple credit cards. They are making payments on the credit cards, but they are only paying the credit card payments, but only the expected minimum payment, so they continue to borrow from their credit cards more each month than they are paying.

The couple realize this is unsustainable, so they start discussing means to address the budgeting issue. They decide they need to increase their income, so they get extra jobs. This increases their income from $5,000 per month to $5,800 per month. But with the extra revenue, they decide they can increase their spending to $8,000 per month. They've increased their revenue by $800 per month, and their spending by only $500 per month, and so they decide to call this a spending cut.

You might say, "Well, that's just insane!" Yes, it is. But that's the way our government has been operating for decades. When you hear the phrase "spending cut" come out of politician's mouth, their not talking about spending less money. They're saying the increase in spending was not as much as the last increase in spending. In other words 2 years ago, they spent 100 billion dollars on something. Last year, they spent 150 billion dollars on the same thing. This year, they will spend 175 billion dollars on it, and that's a spending cut, because the price increased by only 25 billion, instead of 50 billion like the year before.

George Orwell, in his landmark and prescient novel 1984 called this double think and double speak. It's insane, but that's what's been happening, and people don't realize it.

Anyone with any sense whatsoever can see that this is absolutely insane and unsustainable. It doesn't make any difference to our married couple, though, because with the extra income they realize they are eligible for increased credit limits on those credit cards. It won't affect the couple until they can no longer afford everything they are buying. When the credit dries up, and the only money they have is the money they are earning, that's when they will realize that their scheme isn't working. But by then, they will have racked up so much debt that they will need to pay back. Out of their incomes of $5,800, they will have to make credit payments of $3,000 per month, leaving them with only $2,800.00 per month to spend on necessities.

For some reason, people don't see that this is exactly what the government of the United States is doing. Eventually, the credit will run dry. When will that happen? Who knows? When we are 20 trillion dollars in debt? 25 Trillion? Right now, the national debt is so high that if we taxed everyone in the United States for every penny that they earn, we could not pay off the national debt. Our debt has now reached a level that is higher than our national income.

This won't affect us, though, until the credit dries up. When that happens, all of those people who are dependent on government for income and health care will be the ones left out on the streets. The rich will take their money and flee the country, because they can. And the middle class will be caught paying the bill for the uncontrolled spending of the government. It could be my children. It could be my grandchildren, but eventually, someone will have to pay it back, or the country we live in withour freedoms and opportunities will no longer exist. That makes scared for my children. Terrified, actually. That's why this is so important to me.

The finances of our government is not a revenue problem. Our government, through taxes, is one of the highest ranking revenue generators on earth. President Obama's plan to increase taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year is a joke. That would raise enough money to fund our government for an extra 8 to 9 days. The problem is a spending a problem. Until we do real budget cuts, and stop spending more than we take in, the problem will not get better.

I'm desparate. I'll admit it. The direction of our nation's fiscal management has been wrong for decades. My children will not live in the America that I grew up in, and that fills me with a grief that can't be spoken.

Terrorists in far away lands are dangerous. No doubt. The greatest risk to the American way of life, though, is not from terrorists who want to kill us. The greatest risk to the American way of life is an uncontrolled government. What makes me more sad than anything, though, is that we have allowed this to happen. Our government derives its power from the consent of the governed.

That means, through the ballot box, we have given the politicians permission to destroy us from within.

It also means, through the ballot box, we can take that permission back.

I just hope that it's not too late.