Note to readers: Today’s sermon is about the fiscal health of America current and future. This is an opinion piece built on facts. The backdrop of today is somewhat political, but I will do my best to call balls and strikes. After I share “the problem(s)” , I’m going to offer a few ideas for “the solution(s)”. This one’s kinda long, but it’s important, that’s why I wrote it for you. Please read and share as needed.
Huge Numbers
Today we’re going to toss around some really big numbers. Mind blowing big. To give those some context, here’s a baseline:
1 million seconds is about 4 ½ hours.
1 billion seconds is about 31 ½ years.
1 trillion seconds is about 31,700 years.
This will make more sense as we go down today’s rabbit hole.
This Isn’t That
We begin with the national debt; what it is and why it matters. Those who want to lead us are constantly yelling at each other about things like abortion, fentanyl, and the border. Those things matter no doubt, but the national debt is my pet bitch. It is perhaps the greatest act of treason, breach of fiduciary duty, and felony of stupidity that I’ve seen in my lifetime. Where we are and where we’re going could have been avoided, but it was not. In 2007 I watched a 60 Minutes piece on a guy named David Walker that forever changed the way I see the world around me. He was the then Controller General of the Unites States and the head of the General Accountability Office (GAO). He was the Paul Revere of his time. Our leaders didn’t listen.
Words matter, so let’s do a couple of definitions: the debt and the deficit. The debt is not the deficit, and the deficit is not the debt. The deficit is a reflection of the annual check register of the country. In 2023 the Treasury brought in tax receipts of $4.4 trillion and the Congress spent $6.1 trillion. That’s a $1.7 Trillion deficit. That was 2023. Year to date 2024, it’s already exceeded $1.8 Trillion. At the end of the fiscal year (September 30), the GAO makes a ledger entry, adds that deficit to the debt and interest is owed – we’ll get to that in a minute.
The debt is the amount of money the country owes to the people, countries and entities it’s borrowed from all over the world. On July 26, 2024, the national debt reached $35 trillion. The debt has two components to it: funded and unfunded liabilities. Funded liabilities are the ones accounted for in the budget. These are currently about $24.5 Trillion. “Unfunded liabilities” are current promises made that the government has not set aside the money to pay. Those currently total about $218 Trillion.
As I said in the opening, a trillion seconds is 31,700 years. If you use that conversion for context, just last year’s deficit of $1.7 trillion converted would be 53,890 years (plus interest). Total current debt (funded plus unfunded) would convert to 6,910,600 years. Just in case you were curious.
Remember: the debt is not the deficit, and the deficit is not the debt.
Interest
If you’re in hospice this week and your doctor just told you that today would be your last day of Gilligan’s Island reruns, interest on the debt probably isn’t front of mind. But for the rest of us taxpayers it should be and here’s why: as of July, 45.6 % of all the income tax collections this year will be used to pay only the cost of interest on the national debt. Think about that for a minute: almost half of every dollar you pay in taxes goes for interest on the debt and nothing more. Not for schools, roads, foreign wars, or covid tests. Just interest.
Don’t worry, this is about to get a lot better.
The Budget Pie
Every year the President proposes a federal budget and sends it to the sausage factory known as the Congress. After validating their existence, telling us how hard they worked for their constituents back home, and reminding us how super awesome America is, here’s what they’ve really done but won’t tell you…
Think of the federal budget as a pie with two slices. These slices represent the two kinds of spending in the budget: discretionary and non-discretionary. Last year 74% of the federal budget was non-discretionary meaning Congress can’t touch it. This is for things like Medicare, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and food stamps. The other 26% of the federal budget is discretionary. This is for things like defense, public safety, transportation, and education. Of that 26%, every dime is borrowed. So when Congress votes on things defense, K-12 education, HUD housing programs, roads and bridges, and veterans benefits, it’s spending money that must be borrowed, because all of the tax money that was collected is already gone, almost half of it to interest on existing debt, the rest for non-discretionary. And every borrowed penny of new money eventually will come due (plus interest).
Remember: Everything your representative brags about having done for you is paid for with money that is borrowed. Every single one.
The Social Security Shell Game
For a lot of us Social Security is a “set it and forget it” kind of deduction. It’s kind of like saying goodbye to our children and hoping they will come and visit us again when we are old. As taxpayers, we have an expectation that Social Security will be there when it’s our turn as well we should. Currently 63 million Americans rely on it every month. Here are a few facts about the current and future states of Social Security:
1. Since 2010, Social Security has been paying out more than it receives and the deficit (the amount paid more than collected) has increased almost every year. The current FICA tax rate of 12.4% only covers only 38% of what is required to make Social Security payments to its beneficiaries. Where does the other money come from? It’s borrowed (duh).
2. Social Security was designed as a “pay-go” model. It assumes there will be an ever-increasing population with enough workers to backfill the economy and produce the GDP required to support the system. The birthrate in the US has now dropped to an all-time low, so mathematically pay-go is no longer possible. Hey you 20 and 30 something’s – get your patriot on, will ya? Your country needs you.
3. Absent any changes, the current Social Security system will become fiscally insolvent (broke) in 2034. Hello freshly newborn baby and welcome to America. You’re so screwed. Sorry.
The Reason to be Scared…
So all of these things we’ve visited about so far…the debt, the deficit, the interest owed, the unfunded promises – they all seem like pretty scary problems. And they ARE pretty scary problems. But there is one problem above all problems that we should fear most: trust.
Trust? Yes, trust.
Have you ever heard the term “Ponzi Scheme”? It was developed in the 1920’s by an Italian named Charles Ponzi. If you’ve never studied him (I have), it didn’t end well. Everything we’ve talked about today is really just another version of Ponzi’s conundrum: as long as you can continue to collect cash to service debt, everybody is happy, and all is well. But eventually you hit a rubicon – the moment when the amount of your debt service exceeds your ability to make your payments. That’s when the whole thing crashes.
Einstein once called compound interest “The 8th Wonder of the World”. And it really is. As an investor it can make you rich because you receive interest on your interest. But if you’re on the other end of the stick (as a payer) it can make you broke and quick. Without getting to “mathy” on you, this simple phenomenon can be mapped on an X Y graph. The result is something called a “parabola”. A parabola visually shows acceleration in a delta over time. You can look it up if you want, but basically it means that as a payer of interest, with each passing moment you get more screwed faster. And yes, there are people in government paid to count the beans who know all of this stuff. They do.
And yet in this political season, just as it is in every political season, those who would rule us feed us the same fear mongering gibberish as they do every year: “Vote for that one and the world will end”. “Vote for that one and we’re all dead already”. I mean I get it, but let’s get back to that one word that really matters here: trust.
I would argue that what we should really fear as a nation isn’t who we pick as the next Liar in Chief, it’s the day that our creditors stop lining up to loan us the money we need to pay for our very existence in exchange for promissory notes issued by a bankrupt creditor known as the United States government. When, if, and as that day comes, everything we know today will disappear into a black hole. It’ll be like the biggest bong hit ever. Maybe a trillion bong hits. (Note to millennials: a “bong” is plastic tube that holds water as a filter and is used to smoke pot. Very popular in the 1970’s).
What Now?
This is the part of the show where the audience usually asks, “Thanks for scaring the bejesus out of me Mr. Joe. What can we do to fix it?” Excellent question (you guys are so smart).
Some would say it takes “leadership” so let’s start there. If leadership is what got us here, maybe we need a new definition of the word. I define leadership this way: a lonely place where you make decisions that will affect others that they probably won’t like, but you do it anyway.
1. When it comes to the adult topics, it’s been my experience that most people would rather know the truth instead of being fed a bunch of lies or lollipops. Our leaders need to be honest with us. They need to tell us what we probably don’t want to hear, and they need to say it in a way that doesn’t blame. I know…when pigs fly…
2. We need to increase tax revenues. Notice I didn’t say “raise taxes”. It’s a mathematical fact proven by history that taxing rich people more does NOT increase revenues. Shame on any politician or President for saying that it will (I’m talking to you other Joe), it does not. If you want to increase tax receipts, lower tax rates. The American economy is dynamic and capitalist, not regressive and socialist – yet.
3. We need to decrease spending. This is probably the biggest challenge in this conundrum because no child wants their toy taken away. I wouldn’t, would you? But it needs to be done. Our parents need to be better at parenting because so far they’ve pretty much sucked. And these are the parents we actually picked. Someone needs a swat on the butt.
4. We need to change our point of view from “you and them” to “we and us”. Most people I know, regardless of their political priorities or financial status, don’t want to see the country collapse and that’s good because if this thing breaks your politics won’t matter. This requires messaging from the top that is brave, honest, and unites. Sorry, just not seeing it this year from either side. Maybe I need another bong hit. Probably.
Last Word
There are people much smarter than me who have known for a long time that on the current trajectory this thing is going to break. It’s not an “if”, it’s a “when”. Every election they tell us this is the most important election of our lifetimes, and maybe this one really is, but I would offer this as a fellow voter: this is the most important problem of our lifetime and if our elected leaders don’t deal with it and deal with it soon, there will only be three things left in America that matter: tuna fish, vodka, and ammo.
Good luck and have a good week.
Joe Still
2024.08.18
Cite
“When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.”
– Roy E. Disney