Washington’s Drunken Spending

What do $10 million in “Sesame Street” remakes for Pakistan, $765,828 to subsidize “pancakes for yuppies” in Washington D.C., and $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, all have in common? You paid for them.[1]

In a December 2011 oversight report, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-Oklahoma) listed these and almost 100 other jaw-dropping expenditures by our Federal Government. Did you know that last year almost $18 million was given to China in foreign aid, even though we have to borrow money from them to pay our bills?[2] Apparently, we borrow money from China to give it back to them in aid!

All of this is rather shocking in light of the fact that on December 21, 2011 our national debt, which is over $15 TRILLION, exceeded our Gross Domestic Product (GDP).[3] The GDP represents the total dollar value of all goods and services produced over a specific time period.[4] In other words, the dollar amount that taxpayers owe on our Federal Government’s “credit card bill” exceeds the value of everything we produce in America. This is terrifyingly high!

To put this in perspective on a personal level, let’s say the take home pay from your job is $5000 per month.  Of course you need to use a good portion of this money for your everyday expenses to survive (e.g. mortgage, utilities, clothing, food, etc.).  What would you do if you opened your credit card bill and saw that you owed $5005? How do you pay this bill and pay for your living expenses? It’s impossible to make the math work. The money just isn’t there.

Since reading Senator Coburn’s report I’ve been asking myself, “Did I get my money’s worth from all of this Washington spending? Did I enjoy it?” I don’t think so. In fact, it’s reminding me of stories we’ve all read in the news regarding people who were drunk and went shopping online without remembering it!  Unexpectedly, packages started showing up at their door. This was rather nice at first, until the bill came in the mail. The only difference with what’s happening in Washington is that we aren’t the ones doing the drunken spending – Washington politicians are, and they’re using our money!

The bills have come due and we have no way to pay them off. Each day the credit card bill grows larger and larger due to the interest owed plus the new spending. Every family knows that in tough economic times they have to stop unnecessary spending in order to survive.

Ronald Reagan once said about our government,

“We could say they spend like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors, because the sailors are spending their own money.”[5]

Washington’s drunken spending of our money must end, and we can achieve this in the 2012 elections. There are candidates who know how to spend our money on necessities only; who know how to balance a budget; who know that continuing down the current economic path will lead to our nation’s destruction –(remember Greece).

We have to find those candidates who have proven they are serious about getting our nation’s budget and spending under control, and then get those candidates elected to office. It’s the only remedy to this endless drunken spending spree.