The National Debt, does anyone care?

Now that we have the Democrat debates underway it’s time to turn our attention to carefully listen to what the potential candidates have to say. Are they talking about issues that are really important to the nation? Or, are they talking about proposed plans and schemes that will get them elected? Out here in the real world much of what we hear is a bit confusing and is difficult to understand.

Let’s try and shed a little light on the most important issue facing us today: our country’s debt. Unfortunately, no one in either political party is talking about or offering solutions to solve it or at least slow it down. The Federal appropriations and spending process is a bit complicated. However, if you dig into it there are a few items you can monitor that will tell you what is going on. As a former member of the House Appropriations Committee, I can assure you that the rules of the House called “Regular Order” are not being followed and have not been for the past several years. There are twelve sections to the Federal Budget. A sub-committee handles each section. Each of the sub-committees holds yearly hearings with representatives from the agency they have jurisdiction over. The agency offers its request for funding. The sub-committee asks for justification for the various requests made by the agency. Following the hearings the sub-committee will meet and go over the budget proposals. After much discussion the sub-committee will hold a vote. Once the sub-committee has worked its magic the proposal then goes to the full committee. The full appropriations committee will then have debate over the sub-committee proposal. Changes can be made during this debate. Once the full committee has worked its will the proposed budget will go to the House floor. The proposed budget will then be open for discussion by the full House membership. Depending on the Rules Committee, Members may or may not be allowed to offer amendments to the proposal. (A discussion of the Rules Committee is an entire new story.) The entire House then votes on the proposed budget. If it passes, the Bill will then go over to the Senate. It will go through a similar process as it did in the House with committee votes and etc. If the Bill passes the Senate it will then be “conferenced” by the House and Senate. This requires a series of meetings between the House and Senate to iron out any differences between the two bodies. Once the conference is completed the two Houses will hold separate votes with the entire membership of each House. Should the Bill pass both Houses, it will then go down to the White House for the President’s signature to be signed into law.

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According to the rules, this process is supposed to be completed by the end of the fiscal year, September 30. It happened once while I was there. Other years all the wrinkles were usually ironed out before the end of October or the first of November. Two words we hear bandied around are debt and deficit. There is an interrelationship between the two but it is important to know the difference. Debt is the amount of money a country borrows from various sources, including other countries. That figure currently stands over $22.03 trillion. Deficit is the difference between money spent and money received. Currently the figure is $779 billion. One other important number to fit in the equation is the ration between revenue generated by the civilian economy and the government debt. Today that ratio is 106.1%. This means government debt is 106.1% of revenue generated by the private sector. The lowest that ratio has been was 31.80% in 1981 and the record high was 118.9 % in 1946. We had just finished a huge war if you recall. Within these numbers the government is borrowing from itself (primarily the Social Security Fund), shifting revenue from one agency to another and a practice wherein money is borrowed off the books and is nearly impossible for the Congress to control. So, when will we hear someone running for election or re-election start talking about our huge debit and ways to reduce it? Congress is our Board of Directors. If they will not listen to the people that hired them, well, they need to go.