Re: This is why I voted

Ultimate Clemson Legend [103365]

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What adds up is interest on our debt, social security,

Dec 23, 2020, 8:43 AM

Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc. Entitlements and interest on our debt, alone, account for 70% of our spending. That's stuff Congress doesn't even vote on. It's not part of the partisan bickering equation. It's just not a debate. People complain about defense spending as being half of our discretionary budget. If interest rates climb to 4%, that alone will make debt servicing a bigger expense than defense. If rates climb to 8%, debt servicing surpasses ALL discretionary spending. And that's just added to the debt, compounding the problem.

The wheels fly off eventually. Gig is up. It's hard to imagine we're even debating sending out checks to people. But we are.

Complaining about earmarks at this point is pointless. It's a diversion, really, always has been. Complain about these outrageous women's programs in Pakistan and ignore the fact we can't afford what we already promised Americans. Then you can blame the Pakistani aid. And this debate has unraveled over the years. We used to complain about pork barrel spending. $200,000 for frog sex experiments, or $310,000 for Spotted Owl habitat, or whatever. They tell you "It all adds up". All the time we were complaining about that, we were ramping up defense spending, and building out the military industrial complex. While you're ticked about frog sex science, the military was bloating, and we won the Cold War that way. Eventually the complaints then went to the military spending. It's out of control. That lasted several years too. Meanwhile, no one is complaining about entitlements. That's been kept out of the debate because of the frog sex atrocities, and the military spending. By having entitlements and "mandatory" spending set aside as a political non-issue, it has allowed the focus of our problems to be presented as discretionary spending. What politicians actually argue about and debate in Congress.

Well, the gig is up. Anyone with half a brain knows it.

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We are breaking ourselves. That's the crux of it. There are people, old people, who have spent their entire lives voting for whoever will give them more of other people's money. When we run out of that, they vote for whoever will spend our kids money on them. Rich people vote for whoever will take less from them, poor people vote for whoever will give them more. In the end, it's that selfishness, and self-interest that makes this a one-way debt street. It's a total lack of understanding of the role of government. We've spent generations telling people government was the solution to everyone's problems.

Need a job, let government "create" one, with other people's money, who actually created jobs. Meanwhile, Congressmen have invested literally careers in office, promising people money. Others have promised people they will take less of their money. Once it's promised, people assume that they can depend on that money. Yet at the end of the day, our government depends on the people to fund it. But the people are never a part of the equation when it comes to vote buying and sunshine pumping.

Anyway, it is what it is. Our nation spent half its existence with no federal income tax. There's a very good reason for that.

This is why I voted

More concerning is Trump said he would sign it.