Our 2024 Voting And Why It Will Matter More Than Ever Before

In 2011-2012 Unemployment, Foreign Wars, Trade Imbalances, Public Dissatisfaction....all those were big issues, big problems, but Debt is the real dirty word:

$600 Million a day was the growing interest on our National Debt (Deseret News Editorial, July 20, 2011.) Now it is even more, but even that worked out to $219+ Billion per year! Perhaps not right now, but soon the once sanguine lenders/speculators we pay that to will want even more of that compounding interest just because Congress and the president squabbled over default last summer.

If "default" was a dirty word then, "debt" is a downright filthy word now!

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For more years than most of us have lived, sound local leaders have urged individuals to "get out of debt, save, prepare ahead, and do plastic surgery on all your credit cards."

Where was the national leadership in all those years?

Why was our government routinely taking on more debt until today it is almost $38 trillion dollars! And we thought $16 trillion dollars was terrible 12 years ago!

Even that was more than $133,000.00 of debt for every US taxpayer (check out www.USDebtClock.org it will show anyone that our nation's debt is out of control!) And, if you want to see how quickly debts are growing, go to that website and wait a few seconds while it loads the constantly changing and growing numbers. You will be staggered.

Until only a relatively few years ago our National Debt was made up of what were called "bearer bonds" and we didn't even know who we owed the money to! Yet, Congress, even then, comingled the Social Security revenues with the general fund and spent them, while with or without a budget they borrowed still more from their favorite lenders/speculators.

It is that comingling and spending that has Social Security in jeopardy. Now the current Congress is divided and stalemated between "borrow more and somehow spend less," or "borrow more, tax more, and somehow spend less." If we can believe any Republican or Democrat in Congress will spend less as long as they can borrow more, we are ignoring their long history of taxing more and spending more!

The "tax more" supporters have always had a comparatively easy time of it in years past, and only lately has that power to raise taxes met today's serious challenges. And it isn't just challenges coming from the Tea Party or one time candidate Ron Paul. The focus on "the need to raise the debt ceiling" was obscuring the obvious fact that the debt and decades of failed national leadership got us into this mess in the first place.

We still lack sound national leadership, and without a solution for repaying the debt, there is no lasting solution for our national economy. "Solution" is the good word we must discuss and apply now. Try this: search any president's speeches since Congress raised the debt ceiling. Then search the speeches of the Republicans who want to send President Biden packing. Which persons running for reelection or election even propose a "solution" for coping with the national debt or stabilizing Social Security (check for yourself how much Congress and past administrations owe the country on that one!)

That national debt is exactly that, a national debt. You and I owe it together with every taxpayer and taxpaying entity in our country. Congress could spend nothing... zero... and the debt would still increase more tha $225 billion this year!, if nothing was done. And there are so many things which are not being done, that the figure is sure to be even higher. The interest on the national debt is compounding while many in Congress are devoting much of their time to raising campaign funds, rather than doing what we sent them there to do.

We don't have to figure out the "solution." They do. And political rants and squabbling were not what we had in mind when we sent our so lowly esteemed representatives and senators there to work for the good of the country.

If you don't think they can reinvent themselves and get the job done, then look for candidates who have the wits and the guts to give it their best shot. Nothing short of the very future of America is at stake, and time is rapidly running out . The interest and amount of the debt right now is growing as fast as you saw on www.usdebtclock.org .

Our 2024 primary votes and national votes in November have to be part of the "solution." Let's all make them count!

By the way, we spend more in interest on today's National Debt than we do on our military, and that is clearly indefensible.

Copyright 2024 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.