On what do we all agree? Our government spends/wastes too much money. In 25 of the last 30 years, hard-working American taxpayers have seen an increased amount of our income confiscated by the Federal Government (FG). In 2004, the FG received $1.880 trillion from its citizens and spent $2.292 trillion. That created a $412 billion deficit. In 2023, just 20 years later, revenue grew to $4.440 trillion. That is approximately a 150% increase. But that wasn’t enough. The FG spent $6.134 trillion, which created a deficit of $1.694 trillion. A deficit that was 4 times what it was in 2004. Interest on our national debt will exceed $1 trillion this next fiscal year. It will be larger than the budget for defense and health care, and will become the largest item in the budget. That is unacceptable. You know it, and I know it. Our elected representatives, Republican and Democrat alike, know it too. As long as the money they spend helps get them reelected they don’t care.
It is one thing for our representatives to spend our money on programs that benefit Americans. The really tragic thing is that there are certainly hundreds of billions of dollars spent capriciously and being wasted and/or stolen every year. I have been a long-time advocate of cutting 10% off the top of the budget of every FG department and agency. I believe that could happen and nobody, other than government employees displaced by the cuts, would notice. Those receiving the government largesse would be mostly unaffected. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have shown any interest in being responsible fiduciaries of the people’s money. We need someone to champion our fight for fiscal responsibility.
The national debt is growing more than $1+ trillion a year. It currently stands at around $34 trillion, and is growing at an ever-increasing rate. To make $34 trillion more relatable, that is $103,948 for every man woman and child in the U.S. A 2023 Payroll.org poll said that 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That is an increase of 6% over 2022. None of what I have said to this point is sustainable. Yet nobody from either Party has provided anything short of lip service to this critical issue. They are all whistling past the graveyard. We need someone who is serious to take charge of reducing the national debt.
The second thing most of us can agree on is that it is past time for serious leaders to investigate and put an end to the spending, waste, and fraud in D.C. Enter Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Trump has said he will create a Government Efficiency Commission. The Commission will be tasked with “conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the FG and make recommendations for drastic reforms.” Elon Musk has agreed to lead the Commision if Trump is elected. One could be excused for calling a Government Efficiency Commission the ultimate oxymoron until you recognize that Trump and Musk will be in charge. They’re both patriots who know the massive amount of waste and fraud in our government is reversable. They understand that inflation, which is the direct result of FG overspending, creates a disproportionate amount of pain on our most vulnerable citizens.
With 535 members of Congress, the President, V.P. and their appointed cabinet, countless overpaid department heads and bureaucrats, you’d think that someone would solve the debt problem. We all know the only thing missing is the will to do so. We just came through the Christmas in September celebrated by department heads. The government operates on a fiscal year that runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30. Sept. is the month our “public servants” race pell mell to spend the funds they have remaining in their budgets. They do so because they are afraid that a surplus might result in budget cuts in future years. If the purchases they made weren’t necessary until the end of the year, your guess is as good as mine as to how much waste is involved in this exercise. However much is involved, it is peanuts when compared to other government programs.
In the sake of time, I am going to mention but a few areas where Trump and Musk might begin searching for ways to save American taxpayer dollars. Most recently we lived through the heartbreaking situation involving the victims of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. The results of which left many fellow Americans dead, their homes and businesses destroyed, and lives changed forever. The response from FEMA was that they wouldn’t have enough money to get through the hurricane season. To solve a short term funding problem, Congress voted to give FEMA more money. If, as is rumored, FEMA spent tens of billions of dollars on illegal aliens, the American people have a right to be outraged. You can bet that Musk will get to the bottom of how FEMA allocated its budget.
Reporting on another relatively recent event, the Associated Press estimated that 10% of the $4.2 trillion in COVID 19 relief funds were wasted or misspent. That would be $400 billion! Fraudsters used the social security numbers of dead people and prisoners to collect checks, sometimes in multiple states. The FG, in its haste to get checks out did little, shoddy, or no, vetting of those requesting checks. That often happens when the money you are shoveling out the door is not your own.
In 2015, the Dept. of Defense approved a $3 million contract to build a natural gas filling station in some remote city in Afghanistan. The project ended up costing we American taxpayers $42 million!! Unbelievable, yet true. When news of the debacle hit home there was outrage. But nobody, anywhere up the chain of command, took ownership of the project. Everybody pointed to a different agency inside the Dept. I wrote a letter to my 3 members of Congress asking that they get to the bottom of the waste. One of them responded with a letter thanking me for my involvement. He reminded me of the wonderful job he was doing for the state of Michigan, but nothing about the filling station. In spite of my follow-up letters, that was his only response. A second lawmaker responded that he was as outraged as I and promised to get some answers. Nothing followed. The third basically gave me the finger. She never responded to my first, or subsequent letters. I understand that $42 million is a drop in the multi-trillion-dollar budget. But I found dozens of PAGES of this sort of wasteful spending.
I want to change gears for a minute. I have one idea as to how the FG might use our tax dollars more effectively. The FG estimates it owns an estimated 77,000 vacant, or underused, buildings. In 2014, the Office of Management and Budget says the buildings could be costing taxpayers as much as $1.7 billion a year for upkeep and maintenance. Depending on who you ask, it is estimated there are nearly 40,000 homeless veterans in the U.S. Eureka! I’d bet every penny I am worth that the FG could find patriotic, perhaps veteran, owners of construction companies who would retrofit some of those buildings for their homeless brethren to occupy, at cost. They might even be willing to employ some of the homeless vets in the projects. This idea must be researched by FG leaders who care about our veterans. I know you’re out there. I don’t even care if you take credit for the idea.
Remember that Trump and Musk are billionaires who are not beholden to anyone. If Trump is elected, they will be working against a very short 4-year clock with no chance of reelection. We should expect them to hit the ground running. This is one campaign promise that every American, even those who hate him, should be praying Trump will keep. We must begin to reduce our monstrous $34 trillion national debt. Harris hasn’t said one peep about how she might attack it. Indeed, her multiple giveaway programs will continue to grow the debt. Our growing $34 trillion in national debt will impoverish future generations of Americans. It will produce more and higher inflation and lower standards of living for every middle class and poor American family. If you agree that someone needs to take our national debt seriously, you must give the Trump/Vance/Musk Government Efficiency Commission a chance. If you think the national debt is a serious threat to our future success, you must vote for Trump/Vance. Nobody else has brought forth even an inkling of a plan to reduce said debt.
I hope you found this posting informative and interesting. If you did, please tell your family and friends about it. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts, Bob