Email About Budget Deficit

I sent the following email to my U.S. Representative and my two U.S. Senators.


The federal government of the United States is fiscally in critical condition. Here are the numbers:

During the 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency, the yearly budget deficit averaged $544 billion.
During the 8 years of the Barack Obama presidency, the yearly budget deficit averaged $1.2 trillion.
During the 4 years of the Donald Trump presidency, the yearly budget deficit averaged $1.8 trillion.
During the first 3 years of the Joe Biden presidency, the yearly budget deficit has averaged $2.1 trillion.

Of the $33.1 trillion national debt, $27.4 trillion has been added in just the past 23 fiscal years since the beginning of the 21st century.

Sir, this is not sustainable. The profligate spending of the federal government must be stopped immediately. Surely you realize this. Will it be hard for you and your colleagues to fix this problem? Yes! But you really don’t have a choice, unless you and your colleagues want to be responsible for the financial demise of the United States of America.

You must bring the budget into balance within the next 5 years. The rising interest payments on the national debt will not allow for any other course.

Therefore, to stave off the insolvency of the United States government, I suggest the following guidelines:

Fiscal year 2024 – reduce the yearly deficit to $1.6 trillion.
Fiscal year 2025 – reduce the yearly deficit to $1.2 trillion.
Fiscal year 2026 – reduce the yearly deficit to $800 billion.
Fiscal year 2027 – reduce the yearly deficit to $400 billion.
Fiscal year 2028 – reduce the yearly deficit to $0.

It would be wise and prudent to balance the budget more quickly, but, frankly, I have little to no confidence that you and your colleagues can meet the guidelines of even my modest proposal. Thus, I do not have an optimistic outlook for the future viability of the federal government. But, if it does fail financially, it will be you and your colleagues who brought it about due to your own inaction.

Will you be a fiscal Paul Revere and sound the alarm to your colleagues and the nation? Will you help change the course of the United States to one of fiscal sanity, responsibility, and prudence, thereby saving the nation from financial collapse?

If you and your colleagues keep kicking the can down the road, there will eventually be no can to kick.

 

1. The issue with a constitutional convention is that it is not settled that a convention can be limited to a single subject. Remember, the intent of the 1787 gathering was merely to amend the Articles of Confederation. That idea was scrapped and we see what the result has been. It was one of the biggest bait-and-switch operations in history.

c. If a single issue convention is actually possible and a balanced budget amendment made into law, then no deficit spending should be allowed for any year. Period! To do otherwise would be to leave open the floodgates to the mess the United States has now.

d. The current fiat monetary system should be scrapped and replaced by a gold standard monetary system.

 

U.S. national debt as of 9/25/2023:

$33,112,060,391,950.29

The United States government (meaning taxpayers) is going further into debt by $65,000 per second.

 

How about this idea, using very approximate numbers, let say fiscal year 2023 spending comes in at $7 trillion and tax revenues at $5 trillion since the budget deficit needs to be cut around $400 billion per year, how about for fiscal year 2024, as an example, Congress cuts spending by $200 billion to $6.8 trillion, thus reducing each item of spending by 3.3%, and for fiscal year 2024 Congress increases taxes by $200 billion, or by 4%. And then do a similar process over the next 4 fiscal years to achieve a balanced budget. (Note: the 50/50 split and the resulting percentages on spending and revenues is for illustration purposes only.)

Unless fiscal sanity is restored to the federal government in the near future (meaning around five years, in my opinion), then the Congress is basically doing nothing more than arguing over the arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic as it sinks into the North Atlantic.

 

I should also state, that as minarchist and one who thinks that the federal government should be restricted to only its enumerated powers in the U.S. Constitution, that I think the great bulk of federal spending should be stopped. Now I realize it would take to time to unwind programs such as Social Security, Medicare, etc.; thus my emphasis on getting to a balanced budget posthaste and then working on these constitutional restraints, given the urgency to stop increasing the national debt.

 

Congress is also supposed to pass individual appropriation bills; however, that have not followed that requirement in around 26 years.

I am saying they will have to cut spending - either voluntarily or they will be forced to as the financial situation in the United States drastically deteriorates within the near future. It is just like the problem with Social Security running out of money about a decade from now - they were talking about this back around 2005 after George W. Bush was reelected, yet here we are and they still haven't done anything about it.

If Congress refuses to get its fiscal house in order, then eventually there won't be a can left for them to kick down the road.

 

I think that all U.S. overseas bases should be closed and all military personnel brought home. The only military personnel that are not based on U.S. territory should be those on ships and those protecting U.S. foreign diplomats such as those in embassies.

 

In order to balance the federal budget and stop increasing the national debt before the United States falls into financial ruin will require EVERYTHING to be on the table - taxes, the military, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, transportation, education, etc. - ALL spending and ALL sources of revenue.