Ross: We are facing a debt crisis because we want to
May 9, 2023, 8:27 AM | Updated: 10:02 am
President Joe Biden talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
The debt crisis finally forced me to look up all the charts that explain the problem and why it鈥檚 so hard to solve.
What it boils down to is that we鈥檙e used to getting free stuff without paying for it.
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And to make it real, I鈥檒l talk about my own situation. It鈥檚 a terrible betrayal of my privacy, but I鈥檓 sure my iPhone already knows all of this, so why not you?
My wife and I both get Social Security. We could live without it; we end up giving most of it away (and taking a deduction for it), but if our payments were cut, I鈥檇 feel cheated!
I鈥檝e paid into that program for 49 years and 11 months, and I expect the government to keep its promise.
Then there鈥檚 my 401K. My deposits were tax-exempt, and those deposits have now been growing tax-free for 45 years. Yes, I will have to pay taxes when I start making the required withdrawals 鈥� however, if I give the money to my alma mater, it escapes all taxes. Alma maters, of course, love this, which is why it鈥檚 in the tax code.
But when you add that tax break to the tax breaks on capital gains, and on employer contributions to medical insurance, and other breaks, it all adds up to another $1.2 trillion not collected last year.
The numbers go on and on 鈥� and I haven鈥檛 even touched defense spending! Which is still more than China, plus India, plus the UK, plus Russia, plus the next five biggest defense spenders combined.
There are ways to fix this. Since 2019, there have been at least seven proposed solutions from liberals and conservatives to control the national debt, but Congress couldn鈥檛 pass any of them.
And Congress couldn鈥檛 pass them because anyone running for Congress on a promise to make substantial cuts in any of the programs I mentioned would never get elected!
Even people who think that the debt is a huge problem would never vote for that person.
And so that is why we are here. We鈥檙e here because we want to be.
If you鈥檙e brave enough to look at the charts yourself, there鈥檚 a .
Listen to Seattle鈥檚 Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O鈥橞rien weekday mornings from 5 鈥� 9 a.m. on 成人X站 Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the聽podcast here.
