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OUT OF CONTROL SPENDING posted by Frank Guinta
October 20, 2010 , 4:15 PM
It is the understatement of the decade to say that Washington spending is out of control. Hundreds of billions in bailouts, a trillion dollars in a failed stimulus and a trillion dollar healthcare takeover are driving deficits through the roof - not just for today, but for as far as the eye can see. The federal government is spending far beyond its means. What does this all mean for us? It means we have a massive federal deficit, more than $1 trillion in this year alone. That means we're borrowing A LOT of money from future generations and foreign countries. In fact, forty cents of every dollar spent by the federal government this year is borrowed money. We all intuitively understand this doesn't work--it's why our families make a budget and stick to it, cutting spending when money gets tight. Washington doesn't get that. Washington keeps spending merely because it can. It just keeps borrowing money to do so, however. But all this money the federal government is borrowing isn't free. Next year, the federal government will spend more than $200 billion just in the interest payments to run this massive debt. That's more than four times what we'll spend on the Department of Homeland Security and almost as much as we'll spend in all of Medicaid. The President's budget has us on a course so that in 2020, the interest payments on out debt will be $900 billion a year. Let me say that again: the President's budget has us on a track where we will spend almost $1 trillion per year just for the privilege of having an enormous debt! That $900 billion will be 10 times what we'll spend on the Department of Transportation and almost 17 times what we'll spend on the Department of Education. When you're paying taxes, don't you want to get something for that? National defense, roads and bridges, decent schools: all of these will suffer as we flush money down the toilet on an exorbitant credit card bill. Washington's overspending today is going to leave us with a mega bill later. Nobody likes getting charged a ton for a credit card balance, but that's what Washington is setting up for us as a country. There is a better way. When I have the chance to get to Congress, I am going to fight against this nonsense to restore fiscal sanity in Washington.
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Op-Ed
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