No easy way to tackle deficit

Fence Post writer Bill Sarto is wrong. He worries about having to cut benefits in future “entitlement” payments to future recipients. The U.S. is broke. IOUs from Congress comprise almost the entire balance in Social Security’s trust fund, and Congress isn’t even talking about making good on those IOUs. They might as well be Confederate dollars.

The Ryan budget doesn’t go nearly far enough. Deficits need to stop now, not in 2021. Gradually slowing the spending, to stop deficits in 10 years, will roughly double our national debt.

Interest rates won’t stay this low much longer. Carter-era rates of 20 percent or more, on the debt we owe now, would destroy the country. All the revenue Uncle Sam can raise would have to go to interest payments.

Then there would be no Social Security or Medicare, etc. And no military, no food stamps, no FAA, no Army Corps of Engineers and so on. Americans need to think about how we can pay off that debt.

Despite what Keynes said, government spending is not a “product.” It can’t be sold or used as collateral. Our real national product — gross sales or total cash flow is about $7 trillion — and only profits can be used for payments on the $14.4 trillion debt.

Last year, we paid $413 billion in interest, so let’s balance the budget, allocate $1 trillion total to the debt, paying $587 billion next year on the principal. Then it might be paid off in a generation.

Peter G. Malone

St. Charles