Either you're not making sense or I'm not understanding you. What on earth do you mean by saying that the federal budget didn't get us into debt? The way that you get into debt is by spending more money than you have.
Were these expenditures that you listed included in the federal budget or not?
If they were, then, as a matter of fact, the federal budget, along with the corresponding inequality of revenue to expenditures, is precisely what got us into debt!
The federal government has obligations that it is expected to fulfill. And we are expected to supply the government with the resources it need to fulfill those obligation. That's the "federal budget".
Unfortunately, we have slowly and steadily allowed wealthy special interests to take control of our government through legalized bribery , and with that control, they have been funneling massive amounts of money to themselves. OUR money. They want us to believe that all this misappropriated money (much of it borrowed) is part of the "federal budget", meaning that it is just the inherent cost of the government doing what it has been obligated to do, by us. But this is a lie. The massive expenditures that have driven us so deeply into debt were not part of the natural cost of our government meeting it obligations. They were really the result of illicit schemes intended to funnel hundreds of billions of our tax dollars into the hands of a small number of very wealthy and powerful people. And the schemes worked. Those people got VERY rich, and we are very deep in debt because of it.
Now, they want us to blame ourselves for charging our government with too many obligations (like helping us when we're sick, or unemployed, etc.), and therefor over-spending and causing this big debt. But that wasn't really what happened at all. It's a lie. If all those hundreds of billions of dollars had not been stolen from us through the the perversion of government through legalized bribery, we wouldn't be experiencing all this debt, and the government could easily meet it's obligations to the people it was created to serve.
Let's go back to my analogy. Suppose that I am a homeowner with a family. I can't afford all of my bills. I put the excess on my credit card. I've racked up a massive credit card debt, and I'm shelling out 7% of my budget on interest payments alone. Would it really make sense for me to say: "We shouldn't cut spending at all! We should spend better, and smarter"?
This is not a very accurate analogy. If the reason you are in so much debt is because one member of your family stole most of the family's money, then I would think your first course of action would be to retrieve as much of that money as you can, and implement security measures to stop them from stealing it, again.
But our "family" is insanely dysfunctional, so we are not doing the obvious. In fact, we can't even acknowledge what we have allowed to happen, let alone determine a reasonable response.
The problem is that I'm spending money that I don't have, and, because of this, I'm having to pay a lot more money (that I still don't have!) on interest payments.
Sure, but there is more to it then that.
Any reasonable person immediately would realize: "Huh. I'd better get to paying off this massive debt ASAP! I don't want to pay 7% of my budget on interest payments. That's just ridiculous."
No, a reasonable person would want to know why they are suddenly out of money. And when they discover that they have been robbed, would try to retrieve what was taken. They would also want to be sure that they are taking in enough to cover their obligations, and if not, either increase their income or limit their obligations.
Also, this "debt" is not sacred. As I tried to point out in another thread, "debt" is itself a bit of a scam. There is no such thing as a guaranteed loan, except in the human imagination. Therefor, a loan is really an investment, and sometimes, investments just don't pay off. So it's not outrageous that we might decide to tell our "investors" that we simply can't/won't pay anymore "dividend" on their investment until we "right the ship", so to speak. And in reality, there isn't a thing they can do about it. Nor should we feel especially guilty about it.
What does
not make sense is to use one credit card to pay off the other one.
lain:
Well, that depends. If doing that buys us the time we need to "right the ship", then why not. All that's changing is the name on the "debt" agreement. And as you have probably gathered, I'm not all that concerned about them getting their expected "dividends".
It's primarily this one: People tend to hate congress in general. But do you know what? They love their own guy. That's why he keeps getting elected. They hate congress. They love their own congressmen.
No they don't. You're way over-simplifying it. I certainly don't love my congressman. And I know many of my neighbors who don't either.
