While America Teeters On The Brink …

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Discussion across our nation for the foreseeable future is going to focus on the attempted assassination of former U.S. president Donald Trump last weekend in Butler, Pennsylvania – and rightly so. Thanks to inexplicable lapses in the most basic security protocols, Trump was nearly killed by an assassin‘s bullet during a campaign rally on Saturday (July 13, 2024).

Irrespective of one’s views on Trump, determining how and why that happened – and was allowed to happen – is important both in the immediate practical sense and the longer-term philosophical sense.

Following the assassination attempt, embattled incumbent president Joe Biden addressed the nation and called on Americans to “lower the temperature in our politics” – a curious message coming from a politician who just last month referred to Trump as “a genuine threat to this nation.”

“He’s a threat to our freedom,” a dog-whistling Biden posted to X on June 28, 2024. “He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for.”

While the conversation about what happened to Trump (and why) ramps up, another conversation is receding further into the background – one which unfortunately must be had (and satisfactorily resolved) if the American Republic is to have anything resembling a sustainable future.

I’m referring not to the increasingly irrational, increasingly violent stridency of our national discourse – I’m talking about a discussion of our country’s solvency, which should quite frankly be front and center to all citizens currently reeling from the impact of soaring inflation.

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According to the latest monthly statement (.pdf) issued by the U.S. Treasury, America’s red ink is hurtling toward an inflection point.

For years, the national debt has been a massive – yet distant – problem. It was something for future generations to worry about, and so sadly – during the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s – generations of politicians of both parties simply refused to worry about it. Republican and Democrat alike, they continued to spend with reckless abandon – and are continuing to do so in this decade.

As I’ve previously reported, the federal government’s debt stood at $5.6 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2000 – shortly before former president George W. Bush and a GOP Congress took control in Washington, D.C.  By the time the GOP lost control of Congress in 2006, the debt was $8.5 trillion – and by the time Barack Obama was elected president it had climbed to more than $10.6 trillion.

That debt has more than tripled since then … with the GOP playing a starring role in this mindless escalation.

“Democrats, Republicans … Republicans, Democrats,” I noted when Trump took office. “It hasn’t mattered.”

Trump vowed to end deficit spending and reduce the debt during his tenure in the White House – which began with the mountain of red ink standing at approximately $19.9 trillion. Unfortunately, he failed miserably to live up to either of those promises. Trump’s profligacy began early during his term … and extended to his final weeks in office. Under Biden, the escalation of unsustainable spending has driven the debt even higher – reaching $34.9 trillion at last count.

The problem? This is no longer a “tomorrow” number. In June, the federal government spent $140 billion on interest payments related to this massive, ever-expanding albatross – bringing its year-to-date total to $868 billion and putting taxpayers on pace to spend $1.14 trillion this year alone.

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RELATED | NO ONE IS WATCHING AMERICA’S DOOMSDAY CLOCK

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Year-over-year spending on interest payments is now projected to top $1.7 trillion by next April – making it the most expensive line item in our debt-addled “budget.”

Again … that’s borrowing costs. Not “discretionary spending.” Nor exploding entitlements.

That is simply politicians’ buying time …

Guns, not butter? Butter, not guns? Guess what … we’re about to find ourselves unable to afford either.

Last month’s $140.24 billion interest payment was the largest on record, and amounted to a staggering thirty percent of the money the federal government took in over the same thirty-day period. Sadly, no one is doing anything to rein in the deficit spending creating this albatross – as the federal government is on pace to run another trillion-dollar deficit in the current fiscal year ($1.27 trillion, to be precise).

“By any measure, interest costs as part of the federal budget are at an all-time high, and trending even higher in the years ahead,” a release from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation warned. “Securing our nation’s fiscal and economic future will mean getting these interest costs under control, which will help relieve pressure within the budget, allow us to invest in more forward-looking priorities for our future, respond to emergencies, and help ensure a vibrant and inclusive economy for our nation.”

My media outlet has been sounding the alarm on this issue ever since its inception.

“Within a decade, America will be staring down between $800 billion and $1 trillion in annual interest payments on its debt,” I noted in a column addressing this issue published back in June … of 2013.

“Hear me now, listen to me later,” one of my friends is fond of saying.

The problem? Later is now.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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