What would you say about a family of four who earns $44,000 per year and spends $61,000?  Crazy, right?  It gets worse.  The family is $362,000 in debt, and that debt alone is generating $10,000 a year in interest.

That’s not all.  This family also blows at least $10,000 a year on frivolous activities.  Its members are generous, though.  They give away over $700 a year to other people, some but not all of whom are grateful.  As a matter of fact, some of the recipients of their largesse figuratively stab this family in the back by stealing from it and damaging its property.  Once in a while, they even assault members of that family!

Parts of this family’s property are in very poor repair, and some members are not well, yet they continue to make foolish decisions. 

People have tried to warn them of their profligate spending, but they already know!  They understand that their lifestyle is unsustainable, but they’re unable or unwilling to tighten their belts.  Things like rent, food, insurance, and fuel are costing them $38,000 a year.  There’s still $17,000 per year of “discretionary” spending that they could economize on, but they choose not to.

The example above is fictional, of course.  I generated those numbers by taking the national values and knocking some zeroes off.  It’s nearly impossible to deal with numbers in the billions and trillions and make much sense of them.  Translating them into more familiar values helps to reveal the insanity of our position.

America is at the brink of financial collapse, and some say it’s too late to do anything about it.  In 2023, we took in $4.4 trillion and spent $6.1 trillion.  Our debt is $36 trillion, with $1.02 trillion per year in interest.  You would think somebody, somewhere in D.C. would suggest we hit the brakes on the spending.  Every year, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) publishes his “Festivus Report” highlighting some of the insanity.  We laugh ruefully, close our eyes, and shake our heads.  It makes the news for a couple of days, we see articles written about it, and then we go back to business as usual.

And when a few million dollars shows up in a 1,500-page bill to fund roller-skating drag queens or to study constipation in cats or to find out what happens to puppies when you subject them to electrical shocks, our “representatives” support the bill.  They have to, you see, because the bill was given to them the night before it was due to be voted on, and it also contains expenditures to help feed hungry children, so they had no choice.  Who wants to be known as the person who voted to take food out of the mouths of kids?

The last couple of years have seen some tragedies.  Damages from the Lahaina wildfire are in the neighborhood of $6 billion.  Those from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio are currently estimated at $400 million.  That figure is expected to go much higher, as the effect on resident’s health will not be known immediately.  Farmers in the region are having difficulty selling their produce, meat, and dairy products, as buyers are wary of possible contamination.

Hurricanes Helene and Milton ravaged six states, leaving perhaps as many as 375,000 people homeless, and property damage totals are conservatively estimated at $30 billion.  Some victims of these events have received and are receiving federal aid, but reports of recovery and restoration efforts tend not to make the front page.  Even when the stories are reported, they’re pushed aside by The Next Big Thing.

I feel bad for the innocents in Ukraine, but I also feel bad for Americans in Ohio and Lahaina and those in our southeastern states whose homes were destroyed by Helene and Milton.  We’ve allocated over $100 billion in aid to Ukraine since 2022, but it seems as if the money spigot for our own citizens barely turns at all.   New York State wasted $20 billion on fraudulent Medicaid claims and billions more are being spent housing illegal aliens.  We send billions of dollars overseas every year while our own citizens languish and our infrastructure crumbles.  Why are we sending foreign aid to China?

I’m praying that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy follow Javier Milei’s example and bring a financial chainsaw to work with them at DOGE.  I applaud the recent effort to reduce that 1,500-page “Cramnibus” bill into a more reasonably sized piece of legislation.

Here’s an idea: one bill, one topic, no riders.  Vote “yea” or “nay,” stand up, and be counted.

Here’s another: how about if we live within our means? 

Image via Pixabay.