What if Washington DC were bankrupt?
What if Washington politicians spent a million dollars a minute, racking up $20 trillion in debt, with no plan to pay it back?
What if our Kings in Washington sent billions to foreign governments, including those that behead Christians and burn the American flag, while natural disasters devastate our neighbors here at home?
And what if every American taxpayer — you, me, your parents, your neighbors, your children’s teachers, everyone — were on the hook for over $1 million to our government’s creditors like China, Japan and Belgium?
At what point would we as Americans say, “Enough is enough!”
While I wish I were speaking in hypotheticals, this sad reality is where we Americans find ourselves today.
Huge debt is nothing new. Politicians have spent borrowed money for decades. But the consequences of an ever-growing federal nanny state, job-killing crony capitalism and 16 years of excessive international interventionism have accelerated the problem like never before.
President Obama’s brand of soft socialism threw gas on the fire. Sadly, Republicans in DC have done little to reverse the trend, often becoming part of the problem.
I came to politics in 2010, in the shadow of the alarming growth of our national debt that gave rise to the Tea Party. That movement has evolved in many ways, but it began with earnest, non-partisan Americans joining together out of heartfelt concern about our $13 trillion debt.
But it didn’t stop there. In 2012 — at $15.5 trillion — our national debt surpassed our national GDP for the first time ever. This means if every ounce of America’s productivity for an entire year was spent on nothing but paying off our debt, we would still fall short.
These are the kinds of milestones we’ve seen in failing nations like Greece, where the government desperately began seizing money from citizens’ bank accounts to pay their debts. Our leaders should have seen this as a cautionary tale, but apparently it’s their instruction manual.
This past Friday, our nation crossed another threshold. The political class came together to raise the debt ceiling — yet again, with no spending reforms — allowing our nation’s debt to surpass a staggering $20 trillion dollars. And yet, our debts have left the forefront of our debate, and that is a shame. America is a wonderful country, the best in human history, but we are vulnerable.
“The most significant threat to our national security is our debt,” Admiral Michael Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned us in 2010. He was right.
Debt is the greatest threat to our liberties, our prosperity and our national security. If our nation ever falls, like so many before us, the cause will not be the enemy at our gates, but the debts on our balance sheets.
Sadly, the Washington crowd has no interest in cutting spending. Instead, they present a false debate between spending more at home and spending more abroad, reaching an inevitable “compromise” that never means cutting a penny, but instead spending more on everything and stealing more from current and future generations of hardworking Americans.
By and large, Washington is happy keeping us divided, arguing about anything but the elephant in the room: the million dollar bill each and every one of us has coming due.
Just about every politician, with a few rare exceptions, gives empty talk about “deficit reduction” but when it comes time to do something, they are all talk and no action.
If a politician tells you we can fix our looming debt crisis by nibbling around the edges, they are not serious. They may as well offer you a free pony and a personal soda fountain.
And, if that politician has not offered real solutions and never voted for serious reforms, they never will.
I am running for US Senate for 20 trillion reasons — Washington Kings have failed us. We need to eliminate programs that waste money and fail to produce results. We need an America First policy that stops sending billions of dollars abroad while our nation crumbles at home.
Above all, we must recognize that our federal government is bankrupt: there is no more money. And we must take action now to stop the spending.
