A River in Egypt
2011-05-20 - by
Like the British Empire before us and the Roman Empire before them we’ve been living high on the hog for so long it’s hard to imagine the good times ending.
But, right now, there are a fair amount of economic prognosticators who say our current Recession isn’t a hiccup or another one of our periodic economic doldrums – that this time we may have landed in a ditch that none of us have seen before and this recession isn’t a hiccup; it’s a harbinger that our self-indulgence has caught up with us at last.
The whole problem seems to boil down to how long the government can go on borrowing money.
Congress now owes $14 trillion.
And no one knows exactly when our creditors will say, No more. It could be this fall or two or three or four years from now but since $1.5 trillion of the good times Congress has been paying for each year have been paid for with borrowed money when our credit runs out we won’t be able to pay for 40% of our Social Security, 40% of Medicare or 40% of the Pentagon Generals’ salaries.
We’ve been rich so long it’s hard to imagine being so broke we can’t pay Social Security checks. Plus, we’ve become so addicted to having whatever we want no one (and especially no rational Congressman) wants to be the one to tell us the good times are over.
So from Washington to Sacramento government goes merrily on its way spending and borrowing, digging the hole deeper.
For example over in Chapel Hill the Durham Chapel Hill Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization is anxious to build a ‘lite-rail’ system for $1.4 billion. And like most hopeful Americans they figure if they want it why shouldn’t government buy it for them. So while in Washington they’ve borrowed slam up to the debt limit in Chapel Hill they’re about to vote to spend another $1.4 billion.
Next election anyone with any common sense ought to vote against any politician who makes even one rosy promise. But we won’t. De-nial is more than a river in Egypt.
A River in Egypt
2011-05-20/
Like the British Empire before us and the Roman Empire before them we’ve been living high on the hog for so long it’s hard to imagine the good times ending.
But, right now, there are a fair amount of economic prognosticators who say our current Recession isn’t a hiccup or another one of our periodic economic doldrums – that this time we may have landed in a ditch that none of us have seen before and this recession isn’t a hiccup; it’s a harbinger that our self-indulgence has caught up with us at last.
The whole problem seems to boil down to how long the government can go on borrowing money.
Congress now owes $14 trillion.
And no one knows exactly when our creditors will say, No more. It could be this fall or two or three or four years from now but since $1.5 trillion of the good times Congress has been paying for each year have been paid for with borrowed money when our credit runs out we won’t be able to pay for 40% of our Social Security, 40% of Medicare or 40% of the Pentagon Generals’ salaries.
We’ve been rich so long it’s hard to imagine being so broke we can’t pay Social Security checks. Plus, we’ve become so addicted to having whatever we want no one (and especially no rational Congressman) wants to be the one to tell us the good times are over.
So from Washington to Sacramento government goes merrily on its way spending and borrowing, digging the hole deeper.
For example over in Chapel Hill the Durham Chapel Hill Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization is anxious to build a ‘lite-rail’ system for $1.4 billion. And like most hopeful Americans they figure if they want it why shouldn’t government buy it for them. So while in Washington they’ve borrowed slam up to the debt limit in Chapel Hill they’re about to vote to spend another $1.4 billion.
Next election anyone with any common sense ought to vote against any politician who makes even one rosy promise. But we won’t. De-nial is more than a river in Egypt.