Debt

 After writing the blog for Saturday, I woke up with another subject on my mind. It was in a different direction, but not from what I have been seeing whenever I come to the Internet. What I decided was to write it, move the blog I'd written to the next Saturday, and see how I felt about it. I do not see this as partisan but more cultural. It could fill a book, but it won't here-- just a hopefully provocative blog. It's not about answers so much as questions. I am good at that...

Debt and does it matter? I've heard it said that government is different than our personal experience with debt. I do not believe that. I want to start with a letter my mother had saved from her Senator, years ago. She had a concern about government debt then. He wrote that he shared that concern. My mother obviously treasured his reply as it was among her things when she died.

Just think (if you can read the numbers) what the concern for that growing  debt was in 1957, versus the numbers today-- $36.22 trillion with it continuing to grow. When will that become unmanageable, if it isn't already, given how they often deal with it. Here is one belief:

"Unless current revenue and spending policies change, by 2027 debt will reach its historical high of 106 percent of GDP, according to our simulation. If unaddressed, it will grow more than twice as fast as the economy and reach 200 percent of GDP by 2047."

I hear fear over programs being cut to get the debt in control. Very nice programs (some of them) but how are they being paid for? Printing money is one popular method. which makes the dollars you saved worth less and less-- some call that inflation but it's not that simple, is it? Well, it is for some who seem not worried about how we manage that debt. 

To many, the debt seems unrelatable. If they can't relate to it, it has no meaning, but will it eventually when it's greater than our GNP, which is coming.

What I've read a lot is trying to get Americans to feel guilty when jobs are cut, jobs that can't be paid for, but sound nice. If the federal government becomes the main employment, how does that grow the GDP? Again, I see protestors down on corporations, send their jobs all overseas, like Apple has done, cheaper labor and more profits right?

Of course some see the answer is to tax the rich more.  Who though are the rich? "According to the latest IRS data, the top 1% of earners paid 40.4% of all federal income taxes in 2022. This underscores the extent to which the burden of the income tax system falls on taxpayers from the highest income groups."

There is always the accusation that the rich get out of paying their share. I know from our own taxes, which we still pay even on Social Security as there are many ways to get taxed. What you do is get a good accountant, who keeps it legal, but also the least possible is declared, as it is explained to IRS, who looks it over. Yes, there are deductions for charities, investments, infrastructure development, costs of doing business. Is that all done honorably? I can only speak for us as we definitely do not want to get in trouble with the legal requirements. 

People want something for nothing and it seems the human way. Nothing is free, though some want to think there is. For anyone in heavy debt themselves, start figuring a way out of it. Paying interest is buying nothing except profiting someone else. This is true of governments also.

 I do not know about other countries except very few don't have debt. How many have too much? Might be a good idea to research your own countries to see where they stand now.

 This by the way is a photo of my mother, the one who worried about the nation's spending way back when. Does she look like a bad person as some want to think anyone, who thinks that way, must be?