By Randy Rossi -
I am just amazed the fact that our national debt just exceeded $29 trillion was not front page news everywhere. Could it be that most Americans don’t realize how much debt $29 trillion is? Let me put that amount in perspective, the U.S. debt as of 9:30 AM on Friday 12/17/20210 was $29,034,459,293,000!. That means that every new born child has $87,147 of debt on its shoulders the minute it is born! Every tax payer has $229,706 on their shoulders. Don’t believe me? Simply Google US Debt Clock. How bad is this debt? Well in 1960 the U.S. debt was 52.10% of the national GDP. Today, the U.S. Debt is 125.92% of the U.S. GDP. Folks, that is a recipe for disaster. And the Democrats are trying to increase that debt by close to $5 trillion through their insane “Build Back Better” plan.
Sadly, a lot of that debt is tied to government programs that reward people for not working to buy their votes. That political concept goes all the way back to the Roman Empire which fell because of “The insidious poison of free bread and circuses” as Edward Gibbons summarized in his great book “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”. Thomas Jefferson also warned us of the danger of “free bread and circuses” when he said “Democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those that are not”. Right now businesses can’t get enough people to work for them because of all the “free bread and circuses” our government is giving to the people.
Debt is dangerous and people have known that for thousands of years. As the Bible said in Proverbs 22:7, “The borrower is slave to the lender”. Cicero warned his fellow Romans about debt and corrupt politicians 2,000 years ago when he said “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be filled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance”. Sadly, the Roman people didn’t listen to him and the Roman Republic fell into a dictatorship! John Adams updated the warning on the danger of debt when he said “There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword and the other is by debt”. Can we not learn from the past? I can assure you that Thomas Jefferson could not even begin to imagine that America would have $29 trillion of debt today!! We are leaving our children and grandchildren a debt disaster!
