To Make Things Better We Must First Stop Making Them Worse

Say What?

Recently I had one of those alarm attacks about my weight. I hadn’t bothered with the scales for a while and wow, was I surprised. There had been other signs I had ignored, like pants and belts not fitting like they used to, but when I saw that number I knew I had to change some things. Stepping off the scales and back on gave me the same digital number. Rats. I was going to have to actually take action this time. I hate it when that happens.

The first thing I did was to reduce portions. That was tough because since I was a kid I just ate any time I was hungry, which was most of the time. Decades later, that doesn’t work so well. The second thing was to cut back on carbs. That was also tough because I love my carbs and with winter coming on I have been hearing a steady chant by the other voice in my head telling me to eat carbs to keep warm in the cold weather. The third thing I did was to stop eating after the evening meal. Another long-standing tradition bit the dust right there. I weighed myself daily but the first day I was still creeping up. I was near panic.

The first welcome result I noticed was after a couple of days my weight quit going up. Okay, one day is always a fluke. I kept at the austerity and held my breath for the next day. Ooh! No change that morning and no change on the next. I had reached the first base camp. I was no longer gaining. For me, the first step to losing weight was to stop gaining.

Once I had reached a plateau, it was time to begin to tighten the belt and begin the much harder task of actually losing. Then it was possible to adjust other factors like diet, even smaller portions, exercise, hydration, etc. I don’t enjoy it, but it’s working. I could have just continued to swell up like a barrage balloon, but that would be fatal sooner than I wished, so the necessary first step was to stop gaining.

To Change Course We Must First Stop Going In The Old Direction

Recently one of those opinion show pundits expressed impatience with the incoming administration’s efforts to pay down the national debt and get the country’s finances fixed. With an outstanding debt of $38 trillion, it’s a real problem. There was news of proposed tax cuts, appointments to economic policy positions, the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the appointment of Musk and Ramaswamy to head it up, and other fiscal measures to be taken in the new congress.

The pundit said all these things were well and good, but asked when would we start paying down all this mountain of debt?

As with weight loss, the first step toward solving the national debt problem is to stop making it worse. Based on recent experience, that will be difficult enough. It’s the first step toward returning to fiscal sanity. Here is a graphic way to see the problem.

To begin the process of reducing the debt, we must first stop adding to it

tBecause of the domination of aggressive big-spending Democrats like Pelosi and Schumer, and coupled with the timid overpowered Republicans who always seem to fold at the worst possible time, we have been borrowing heavily against the future for many years.

The Fiscal year 2020 red ink can arguably be called an emergency reaction deficit because of covid, but the years following 2020 show more catastrophic deficits each year. The deficits for 2021 through 2023 added up to $7.66 trillion. Add the $3.13 trillion from 2020 to see that more than $10 trillion has been added to the national debt in just the last five years. We are on track to add another $2 trillion this year. There is no justification for this deficit spending. The big spenders in congress have done this because they get power from it and because no one has stopped them. We are already past the red line for financial ruin. We must stop before we blow the engine.

To begin the process of reducing the debt, we must first stop adding to it.

There has been no budget for the United States (as required by the Constitution) since 2009

One of the best ways to do this will be to insist on a regular order budget for the country. There will be a terrible fight over this. There has been no budget for the United States (as required by the Constitution) since 2009. Since that time we have been handed a series of emergency budget continuing resolutions. These are just money buckets with no accountability to the tax payers. They allow powerful people to stuff them with funding for their pet causes and departments and lobbyists while leaving the taxpayers out in the cold and still paying the bill. It also allowed them to pile up enormous deficits (which are added each year to the national debt) without raising taxes. As a result, the interest on the national debt (which must be paid each year) now exceeds $1 trillion per year. We have been on this path to national suicide for decades. As tax revenues increased, deficit spending increased faster. The entrenched political class has gone nuts.

Many of the people who have led us to this precipice are still in congress. They have demanded that the country follow this road to destruction without batting an eye. They will raise a chorus of pain and screaming and warnings of apocalypse beginning very soon. This chorus must be ignored because it is only the beginning. The first task is to stop making the problem worse. It will take a herculean effort just to stop the deficits by balancing the budget, but we have never heard screaming like what is coming.

Then the real pain will begin

Then the real pain will begin. We must then take in revenues larger than expenditures in order to use any surplus to pay down some debt. The revenues currently include what’s paid into Social Security, and these must finally go into the trust fund where they belong instead of being spent like everyday tax revenue. That fight will be worse than the first one. Hell hath no fury like a politician deprived of his taxpayer funded slush funds. If successful, this program of austerity and fiscal restraint will bring us nothing but insults and epithets. The reward will be that the country may be saved, but the big spenders never cared about the country anyway. Their jobs gave them the opportunity to enrich themselves while destroying the future for us all. They protected themselves from economic doom by taking plenty of taxpayer money for themselves. Nice work if you can get it and keep the job for just a few years.

The voters spoke very clearly on November 5 so that for the first time in decades we may actually be able to start changing the direction the country is headed. The first job will be to stop going the same old direction downriver toward the falls.

Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II,  may be ordered from Indiana University Press.