By John W. Whitehead
Let’s talk numbers, shall we?
The national debt, the amount the federal government has borrowed over the years and must pay back, is $23 Trillion and growing.
The amount this country owes is now greater than its gross national product, all the products and services produced in one year by labor and property supplied by the citizens. We’re paying more than $270 Billion just in interest on that public debt annually. And the top two foreign countries who own our debt are China and Japan.
The national deficit, the difference between what the government spends and the revenue it takes in is projected to surpass $1 Trillion every year for the next 10 years.
The United States spends more on foreign aid than any other nation ($50 Billion in 2017). More than 150 countries around the world receive U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance, with most of the funds going to the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
Meanwhile, almost 60% of Americans are so financially strapped that they don’t have even $500 in savings and nothing whatsoever put away for retirement, and yet they are being forced to pay for government programs that do little to enhance or advance their lives.
Folks, if you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re not living the American dream.
We’re living a financial nightmare.
The U.S. government, and that includes the current administration, is spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are the ones who will pay for it.
Financial analyst Kristin Tate explains, “When the government has its debt bill come due, all of us will be on the hook.” It’s happened before: During the European debt crisis, Cypress seized private funds from its citizens’ bank accounts to cover its debts, with those who had been careful to save their pennies forced to relinquish between 40% to 60% of their assets.
Could it happen here? Could the government actually seize private funds for its own gain?
Look around you. It’s already happening.
In the eyes of the government, “we the people, the voters, the consumers, and the taxpayers” are little more than pocketbooks waiting to be picked.
Consider: The government can seize your home and your car, which you’ve bought and paid for, over nonpayment of taxes. Government agents can freeze and seize your bank accounts and other valuables if they merely suspect wrongdoing. And the IRS insists on getting the first cut of your salary to pay for government programs over which you have no say.
We have no real say in how the government runs, or how our taxpayer funds are used, but we’re being forced to pay through the nose, anyhow.
We have no real say, but that doesn’t prevent the government from fleecing us at every turn and forcing us to pay for endless wars that do more to fund the military industrial complex than protect us, pork barrel projects that produce little to nothing, and a police state that serves only to imprison us within its walls.
If you have no choice, no voice, and no real options when it comes to the government’s claims on your property and your money, you’re not free.
If Americans managed their personal finances the way the government mismanages the Nation’s finances, we’d all be in debtors’ prison by now.
Still, the government remains unrepentant, unfazed and undeterred in its money grabs.
Although we’re struggling to get by, and making tough decisions about how to spend what little money actually makes it into our pockets after the federal, state, and local governments take their share (this doesn’t include the stealth taxes imposed through tolls, fines, and other fiscal penalties), the police state is spending our hard-earned tax dollars to further entrench its powers and entrap its citizens.
For instance, American taxpayers have been forced to shell out more than $5.6 Trillion since September 11, 2001 for the military industrial complex’s costly, endless, so-called war on terrorism.
That translates to roughly $23,000 per taxpayer to wage wars abroad, occupy foreign countries, provide financial aid to foreign allies, and fill the pockets of defense contractors and grease the hands of corrupt foreign dignitaries.
Mind you, that staggering $6 Trillion is only a portion of what the Pentagon spends on America’s military empire.
That price tag keeps growing, too.
Yet, it’s not just the government’s endless wars that are bleeding us dry.
We’re being forced to shell out money for surveillance systems to track our movements, money to further militarize our already militarized police, money to allow the government to raid our homes and bank accounts, money to provide funds for our schools where our kids learn nothing about freedom and everything about how to comply, and on and on.
Are you getting the picture yet?
The government isn’t taking our money to make our lives better. Just take a look at the Nation’s failing infrastructure, and you’ll see how little is being spent on programs that advance the common good.
We’re being robbed blind so the governmental elite can get richer.
It is nothing less than financial tyranny.
“We the people” have become the new, permanent underclass in America.
It’s tempting to say that there’s little we can do about it, except that’s not quite accurate.
There are a few things we can do: Demand transparency, reject cronyism and graft, insist on fair pricing and honest accounting methods, call a halt to incentive-driven government programs that prioritize profits over citizens, but it will require that “we the people” stop playing politics and stand united against the politicians and corporate interests who have turned our government and economy into a pay-to-play exercise in fascism.
We’re all in the same boat, folks, and there’s only one real life preserver: That’s the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The U.S. Constitution starts with those three powerful words: “We the people.”
The message is this: There is power in our numbers.
I make clear in my book, “Battlefield America: The War on the American People,” our numbers remain our greatest strength in the face of a governmental elite that continues to ride roughshod over the populace. It remains our greatest defense against a government that has claimed for itself unlimited power over the purse (taxpayer funds) and the sword (military might).
It holds true whether it’s health care, war-spending, or the American police state.
—The Rutherford Institute