AS I SEE IT
By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor
You have to give President Joe Biden and the Democrats credit. They believe that the best way to give everyone in the county something is to roll out trillion dollar programs like money grows on trees. So far in just over four months the Biden administration has been in office, it has proposed spending nearly $5 trillion in programs that provide relief for the COVID-19 pandemic, build the nation’s infrastructure, provide more unemployment benefits, provide free education at community colleges, build out an entire Green Energy infrastructure and the list goes on and on.
How is Biden going to pay for all of those great programs? It’s simple. He says he is going to fund all of these programs by increasing the taxes on the wealthy and businesses, as well as create new taxes that ultimately every person in the United States will be paying.
More importantly, what he is not telling the American public is that even if he raises the taxes on today’s taxpayers, he is going to be burdening future generations with a staggering debt. The trillions of dollars in new debt that he, and ultimately the U.S. Congress, are set to pass onto the American taxpayer is going to be a ticking time bomb.
As of March 1, America’s national debt stood at $28 trillion. A staggering sum especially when you consider that $28 trillion is more than the combined economies of China, Japan, Germany and India. It amounts to $218,000 for each and every American household or $85,000 per person in America. And if every household in this country contributed $1,000 per month toward paying down this national debt, it would take over 18 years.
Unfortunately, politicians in this country seem to have forgotten that the government cannot continue to just print up more and more money and at the same time keep piling up the national debt. And at the same time, promise the taxpayers that somebody else is going to pick up the tab for our govenment’s excessive spending.
Without a doubt, COVID-19 impacted the lives of the majority of Americans. And it impacted our economy as well. But as we are already seeing, the economy is starting to recover. And that recovery for the most part is happening without the federal government.
Businesses are trying to rebuild and reopen. They are trying to rehire workers that were laid off because of the pandemic. But now, in addition to struggling financially to get back on their feet, they are going to be faced with higher taxes, which will prevent their rapid recovery.
During tough economic times, the American public and businesses tightened their belts and did with less. It was what they had to do to survive.
But that is not what the federal government did. Instead of scaling back to reduce costs, politicians grew government and launched more and more spending programs that future generations of Americans will have to pay for through their taxes.
And now they want to pile on even more debt. And that is wrong.