NATIONAL DEBT
Every time a committee gets to spend other people’s money it wastes incredible amounts of it.
Worse, almost every time voters get to vote on increasing a local school tax they pass it.
The worst is how easily a family slides into overwhelming credit card debt. We want things and we won’t be denied … even though we don’t have the money right now to do it.
See! The problem isn’t with government, it is with individuals. We have a system which gives advantage to the individual. We want our street paved because it has one pothole. We want our electric service protected because there is a tree limb that hangs over the line. We want our school to be the best. We want our library to be the most up to date. We want our fire and police departments to be ready for anything.
We want a tax write off when we buy an e-car. We WANT, WANT, WANT. And politicians WANT our votes. So, they spend money we don’t have to give us what we don’t deserve.
Then a crisis occurs (Covid or a War) and we spend even more.
Or, some politician thinks he has a better idea for health insurance and thousands of pages of law are passed to make us think our lives will be better if we spend lots more money.
That’s how we end up as a nation with $4 (and lots of zeros) of debt.
And that’s how the nation falls into a dictatorship (not talking about Trump here). Yes, a true dictatorship would be far worse than what we have, because there would be no judge willing to tell him or her “no.” Well, a few would, but they would find themselves facing a firing squad; then no more would.
A prophetic quote which speaks of a normal national cycle ends with this: “From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
We see a similar pattern with the Nation of Israel in Biblical history. Redemption, Faithfulness, Falling Away, and Punishment. (Rinse, Repeat)
There are patterns found when it comes to Socialism and Communism, too. Only those systems fall much more quickly into bondage and remain there much longer. Advantage to the dictator.
So, changing systems won’t speed relief to the headache. Changing the American system merely gives the headache more jackhammers.
What can be done? What are you willing to have done? Part 1, call a Constitutional Convention where we decide that Government must balance income and expenses (not the same thing as a “balanced budget” which has nothing to do with reality). No exceptions, except war. If a president or congress does, they will be tossed out of office and cannot be re-elected. Part 2, National Debt must be repaid at the rate of 1% of principal per 4-year presidential term. (That is an incredible amount of money, by the way, and we may have to do without some goodies like funding plays in Argentina).
Les Ruben of FoxNews blames Washington DC politicians. But it is far bigger than that. The state of California has out of control budgets. Whoa! Did I say a whole state? Wait! The school district in the county next to us has been overspending its bloated budget by millions a year. Whoa! Did I mention a school district? Our neighbors have maxed out their credit cards. They had to go to a rent-to-own store to replace some living room furniture.
I believe it must be true that 70% of non-military Federal spending this year is going to fund programs which did not even exist the year I was born. Snap wasn’t even a thing back then. There was no Federally run Department of Education (and students scored higher then on standardized tests than they now do.) There was no funding going to NPR. But people don’t remember history. They don’t know that there was a time BEFORE Interstate Road Systems (which are paid for and maintained by the federal government). I was listening to a large city mayor trying to explain to a radio caller why a certain road in the city had not been repaired. She said, “There are federal roads, there are state roads, and there are county roads which run through the city. And our city roads department has no control over when those roads are repaired or plowed in a snowstorm. We only plow our own streets.”
The financial mess is not only Federal. It is Regional, State-wide, County, Township, and School District. Worse, it is the same house by house. We all are overspending. We all have special projects we don’t want to give up. And as long as no one budges, it will overwhelm our ability to fix it. The very first thing we must do is determine what is of PRIMARY importance. Not everything is. At least 70% non-military spending is not because there was a time we did without it. Those things, by nature of that alone, are SECONDARY, at best. Where can we trim 20%? You figure it out!
In fact, I recently posted an article (for Median-Income Families) how that should be done in every household. We did it in our house. How to save money on everything…begin with a list of everything that uses your money. How much do you spend for meal delivery? How much do you spend for Lottery tickets? How much for streaming services? Phone? Trash pick-up?
We did a deep dive into family expenses and found we were wasting money several places. Do you think that kind of deep dive should be done at a Federal level? I do. I think we could find $Trillions in savings. Should our state do a deep dive? I am sure we would find hundreds of Millions. That local school district could find a Million all by itself. In our home we found over $10,000/year (That’s a nice down payment on a car). As a result of our deep dive we now seldom throw out any fruits or vegetables. Our weekly food budget dropped by 20% (and we lost some excess weight without a prescription). Eliminating waste is a powerful tool for keeping out of debt.
What I’m saying is that WE are the problem when it comes to National Debt. We are spoiled and demand too much from our government, and they give it to us, but first they take it from us. The solution is simple: fiscal responsibility that starts with US demanding it. Open a Constitutional Convention and write it into our “do it this way” bylaws.
Copyright 2026 Donald Whelpley
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