Our Dream - part 4
"Our Dream"
(Part 4 of 4)
……. The Truth Revealed and The Dirty (Little) BIG Secret (continued from last week)
SC and RTC are organizations that have and will continue to have an influence on your lives and those of your children. Scroungess and Repay Tat are anagrams. They are words made up by rearranging the letters of some other words. When the letters are rearranged, Scroungess spells "US Congress" and Repay Tat spells "Tea Party".
What is it that congress has done that causes me to describe it as the Scroungess Corporation in this story? How many month's in a row can you spend more money than you take in and still pay your bills? Each and every year since 1969 the US Congress has spent more money than it's income has been. Over the past forty or so years congress has used creative ways and newly invented words to deceive us, the American Taxpayer and it's time they stop doing so. Some people may want to live in a make-believe world and dance around with Alice in her Wonderland, but most of my family, friends and neighbors want to live in a real world and want to know the truth about where and how our tax dollars are being spent. Do you?
Over the past 40 years congress has been controlled by both the Democrat Party and the Republican Party. We have had Democrat presidents and Republican presidents. No matter the party in power one thing has been consistent over the past 40 years; our government has voted to spend more money than they took in every one of those 40 years. This is a shame that is on the shoulders of our elected officials and possibly even more so on you and me. When was the last time you contacted an elected official and asked them to spend less money on a government program from which you personally would benefit?
Who is it that the Repay Tat Company or Tea Party and what has this organization done for you and me? The Tea Party does not have an official constitution, it does not have a national party leader and it does not have a written set of rules its members must follow. You do not register as a Tea Party Member to vote in local or national elections. The members of the Tea Party are members simply because they say they are. As in most organizations, there are some individual members who express belief in both of the far ends of the pendulum swing. For our country and for me, the most important thing this organization has done is to confront not only congress but to the American Public with the irresponsible spending habits of our federal government. The Tea Party is comprised of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians and those with absolutely no affiliation with any past political movement. This organization has influenced previously non-political individuals to make a difference regarding major political issues our country is facing today.
I have not written this column to endorse the Tea Party or to try to get you to become involved with the Tea Party. Make your own decisions, however, I do wish to encourage you to become involved politically in a way that will make a difference for the future of your country, your friends and your family.
Why, you ask? Below I present to you with a few facts that should motivate every caring citizen of our country to take action to make certain that our federal government reverses the 40 year plan of spending money they don't have.
Consider the following numbers given to us from our federal government for this year alone:
1) President Obama's Proposed budget this year, $3,730,000,000,000.
2) Amount of tax revenue this year, $2,100,000,000,000.
3) Amount requested to borrow this year, $1,630,000,000,000.
4) Interest payment due this year, $500,000,000,000.
If you add the interest payment of $500 Billion to the amount of deficit borrowed $1.63 Trillion it equals $2.13 Trillion and the total tax revenues for the year are $2.1 Trillion. Under President Obama's budget proposal, the amount of money required to pay the interest due this year and the amount of money borrowed this year by the federal government is greater than the total tax revenues.
In our everyday lives, the federal government's above proposed budget looks like the following example. Assume your family earns $63,000 this year and spends $112,000. In order to spend the $112,000 you would need to borrow $49,000 from your credit cards. From the $63,000 your family earns, you will pay $12,500 in interest on the debt you have accumulated on your credit cards and you borrow an additional $49,000 on those same credit cards to pay for this year's lifestyle.
Our government has already borrowed a lot of money. The debt the federal government has accumulated over the past few decades by continually spending more than it takes in now totals $14.6 trillion dollars. Who owes that vast amount of money? Not the elected officials who signed the papers to borrow it. 100% of that debt is owed by you and me personally. You and I are obligated to pay China, Japan, and every other debt holder from whom our government has borrowed money. When the federal government prints more money, it is not free. Look at a dollar bill and it says "Federal Reserve Note" at the top. A note is a loan. Our federal government has no collateral to pay these notes. Federal Reserve Notes are simply a signature loan guaranteed by you and me.
Of that $14.6 trillion, how much do you owe? I explained it to my three adult children this way. There are a little over 300 million people living in the United States so each man woman, child and baby born in our country owes $48,000. The debt is paid through taxes so only taxpayers will pay for the debt. Slightly less than 140 million people filed tax returns last year and each of those tax fliers should owe about $105,000. Only about 47% of those who filed tax returns actually paid any taxes leaving around 65 million taxpayers to pay for the debt. Each person who pays taxes owes around $224,000. If you paid taxes last year, I ask you the same question that I asked of each of my children, "How are you going to pay the $224,000 that you owe?"
I can't write a check for $224,000 to pay my share of the debt. Can you? Understanding the truth about our national debt is not a cause for despair or depression. The truth may not set us free from the debt, but truth does set us free from being deceived into making irrational and bad decisions. Last week I said that you have the opportunity to write the final chapter for the Scroungess Corporation. Our story about the Scroungess Corporation is over and next week we will look at what each of us can do to help our country, our friends, our family and ourselves get control of our national debt. Always remember, it is OUR national debt, not a debt owed by the Scroungess Corporation.
Next week - The $20.00 Challenge……..
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