What happens if a human being eats junk and other fattening foods non stop all day, every day?
What happens if that same person lives a sedentary lifestyle?
What if this person lives this way for five years? Ten? Twenty?
What will happen to this person if he or she does change their lifestyle in a significant way after these many years?
Since 1913, the United States of America has increasingly treated the federal budget in the same way the hypothetical person above treats food. Think of calories beyond those needed to sustain life in daily terms in the same way as a budget deficit and think of the pounds gained as the national debt in this metaphor.
In 1913, three major changes to the American law and system of government occurred. First, the Federal Reserve was formed to prevent “bank panics” as had happened previously in 1909.
Even more significantly, two amendments to the United States Constitution fundamentally changed the federal government. One moved the election of United States Senators from State Legislatures to the people, which has led to unfunded mandates, undermining of the legal sovereignty of states, and other negatives.
The other legalized federal collection of the income tax. Backers of the amendment stated that the tax would only affect the top two percent of income earners. That did not happen, but the federal government tapped into a revenue source that brought funding beyond its wildest dreams – except that eventually that was not even enough and the United States accumulated mountains of debt.
Combine the effect of the two amendments and one sees the removal of discipline and restraint from the federal government in terms of budgeting, regulations, and more.
Americans have grown used to the federal government spending as much as it wants on pretty much whatever it wants. Federal jobs, grants, and installations got spread around similarly to Jesus Christ handing out loaves and fishes.
As a human body adds pounds and grows past 400 pounds, 500 pounds, or more, it creates burdens and strains on vital systems. Continual weight gain can lead to increasing insulin resistance until the pancreas no longer functions properly. This causes diabetes, which can lead to a chain of other health problems.
Obesity also forces the heart to work harder, leading to high blood pressure. High blood sugar, high blood pressure, and other related factors can cause heart disease.
Once a person reaches a certain weight, and for each person that’s different, all roads leading in the weight gain direction have the same destination – the catastrophic failure of the body.
In the year 2000, the national debt of the United States was 5.6 trillion. As of the sixth of March, that had risen to $36.56 trillion.
The first catastrophic failure that Americans are already aware of was set at 2038 a decade ago, but that has crept up to 2033. That is the year in which the funds for Social Security are depleted. While most of Generation X has lived on the assumption that Social Security would not exist when they retired, those who came before lived to rely on it.
Further and worse catastrophic failures will come when the government can no longer borrow endlessly.
Should an obese person with an unhealthy lifestyle wait until they contract diabetes or have a heart attack before making radical lifestyle changes to reverse course and return to health?
Of course not.
Once a person reaches a state in which excess weight and poor lifestyle choices force changes, if made, those will bring discomfort and even pain. Losing weight quickly through diet and exercise forces the previously sedentary person to a new and unfamiliar lifestyle. He or she cannot simply drop dessert and call it a day, but change how they think about food.
They make these changes out of awareness of the consequences of continuing to live a life without discipline or restraint.
Some suggest that taxing the rich would serve as a sort of magic pill to make everything better. The government could confiscate every penny from every billionaire and barely make a dent in the debt. Additionally, that would kneecap the ability of the wealthy to create more wealth, one of the dynamics that keeps the system afloat now.
The United States federal government has not yet reached a point where it faces immediate catastrophic failures, but that time will come much too soon. Preserving the government’s flexibility to respond to crises at home and abroad, and preventing catastrophic failure, means that it must constrict its sphere of action considerably and spend much, much less money.
America’s federal government needs to figure out what it must do and what it does well, move many responsibilities and powers to state and local governments, and decide that the rest need not be done by any government agency.
So far, the main pain point has come in the loss of federal jobs. These, however, have not come close to some of the mass private sector layoffs in different fields over the decades – some of which came about due to changing federal regulations. Over time, however, expect to see the federal government much less active across the board and involved in many less fields, though it will likely perform much better over time in what it continues to do.
The luxury of choosing whether or not to act moderately to roll back the debt passed long ago. Either the government reform, retool, and restore priorities in its sense of purpose, and experience some pain now on the path to better fiscal health, or the nation will face catastrophic failures down the road as the burden of debt strangles the body politic.
