National debt is a heavy millstone

The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that the federal deficit for February set a one month record of $223 billion. This certainly is a “milestone” for the Obama administration; one that, at current spending levels, should be surpassed soon.

February’s deficit exceeds the total deficit for all of 2007. The nation’s total debt now exceeds $14 trillion, $4 trillion of which was added since President Obama took office only two years ago.

To put these huge numbers into a comprehensible context, it would take one person, counting continuously one number per second, 31 years, 251 days and seven hours to count to only one billion. Rounding the number of years to 32 to count each billion, it would take 7,136 years to count the deficit amassed this past February alone. Counting to one “trillion” would take 32,000 years; for the total national debt, 448,000 years.

What is the Obama administration’s response to this astronomical debt? Politically, it must appear to be doing something, so it proposes token reductions to projected spending. It does this begrudgingly, incongruously arguing that it would be “irresponsible” to cut spending more because the federal government must “invest” in the future. Yet, the federal government doesn’t directly produce or manufacture anything tangible.

Its so-called “investments” are merely transfers of taxpayers’ wealth to favored groups. The federal government transfers its debt, i.e., its promises to pay taxpayers’ wealth, from one generation onto the next.

February’s “milestone” deficits and others foreseeable for the future add to the weight of the massive millstone of debt the government has hung around the neck of the upcoming generation. The debt will burden economic freedom and drag down standards of living. This is not the way to “win the future.”

Greg Guckenberger

Batavia