When the Public Sector spends more money than the Private Sector pays in taxes. Our elected representatives borrow money to make up the difference, putting us all in debt. Politicians prefer to call it “National Debt”. That makes it sound like they are not responsible for creating the debt and. “We the people” are not personally responsible for paying the debt.
Our representatives have a long history of spending tax money like drunken sailors; then kicking the debt-can down the road. Andrew Jackson’s administration paid off the national debt in 1835. It was the only time in our nation’s history our country was debt free.
At this moment on Jan 8, 2025, our national debt is more than 36 Trillion dollars ($106,000 per citizen or $281,000 per private sector worker) and the debt is growing at more than 4 Million dollars per minute.
If you are one of the people who think the debt can be paid off by increasing the taxes on billionaires, think again. The debt is so large it would require 36,000 billionaires to pay 1 billion dollars each to pay off the debt. There are only 756 billionaires in the US and their total net worth is $6.2 trillion. Their annual income is a fraction of their net worth. Raising their income tax rate will have little effect on the size of the national debt, but it will give congress billions of reasons to spend more.
If you believe the debt can be paid by raising corporate taxes, it will not. Every time tax rates are increased; “we the people” suffer. Congress expands the public Sector and congressional spending exceeds the increase. Raising corporate taxes reduces Private Sector profits and kills small businesses. Small businesses are the life blood of the middle class and the country’s economic engine. They employ 77% of the American workforce.
If we don’t find a means to pay off (or cancel) this debt, our unborn children and grandchildren will be forced to devalue the dollar, sell off national lands, or go to war; just to satisfy our debt to China.
Our current tax, tariff, and spending policies will never generate enough revenue to pay off the national debt.
If we seriously want our country to be debt free, the first thing we need to do is to put our congressional house in order, the second is to Balance public Sector spending with Private Sector revenue, and the third is to create a dedicated source of revenue that congress cannot touch.
Several revenue sources have been proposed, but only one is relatively painless to all Americans.
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