“Look, here it is.” Joe Biden is lying again.
In his Monday morning press conference on raising the national debt, he echoed the argument, oft-heard from Democrat lawmakers, that we have to “raise the debt ceiling to pay for money already spent by both parties.” Which is an outright lie.
According to the Treasury Department, in FY 2021service on the national debt averaged $43.7 billion dollars a month. In June, the highest month, payment was $99.2 billion. That’s all the US needed to avoid default.
In FY 2021, the lowest monthly federal tax receipts totaled $218.5 billion. June’s take was $449 billion, four-and-a-half times what we needed to service the national debt. No, Joe. Raising the debt ceiling is not about paying for money already spent. It’s about paying for all that other stuff that gets crammed into the budget.
No, not national defense. That’s constitutionally mandated and necessary for a sovereign country, as the imbroglio at our southern border and the multiple debacles from Kabul to the South China Sea suggest. Not even physical infrastructure – roads, bridges, ports and the like. Ever since Thomas Jefferson lost the “National Road” argument to Alexander Hamilton in Washington’s presidency, that sort of spending was on the cards.
But today’s budget – again, according to the Treasury Department – shoveled an average of $281 billion a month our to individuals in the second quarter of FY 2021 – less than half of the previous quarter’s total. So no – it’s not payments on the national debt that’s a problem. It’s the relentless push by Congress to spend money we don’t have in the effort to buy votes that’s bankrupting the country.
Buy the way, one doesn’t get $3.5 trillion – or any other amount of spending “free.” When White House spokesman Andrew Bates – or anyone else – says it is, it’s an indication of one of four things:
1) They can’t do math;
2) They’re liars;
3) They think you’re too stupid to count, or care, or
4) All of above.
Me, I choose number four.
A $3.5 trillion spending bill will cost exactly $3.5 trillion. More, if we’re using Democrat math. It will under no circumstances cost zero. The only question is, from where will the money come? Will Democrats confiscate it from those who have made it? Will they borrow it from our grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Will they print it? Or will they attempt all of these, and who-knows what other schemes to take money from those who have it to give it to those who do not, in return for their votes?
Whatever they will try to do, rest assured that it will enlarge the role of government in our lives, want it or not. And rest assured that they will say anything to get what they want: their boot in your face, forever.
If that seems a bad idea to you, tell everyone. Tell your senators. Tell you representatives. Tell you state legislators, governor, local newspaper, friends, neighbors – and tell them until the threat to our country’s tomorrows recedes. Hopefully, in January of 2023,when the current cacophonous clown Congress of economic wreckers and its Spendzilla monsters have finally been put out of our misery.
