Thomas D. Segel
National Debt: The Real Dirty Little Secret
April 27, 2010

Americans no longer trust anything their government tells them, and with very good reason. A politician will lie about anything, particularly money. We have seen it in the double counting and misrepresentation of cost in the latest bill to be jammed through Congress…Obamacare. We have seen it in the babble the politicos put out about Social Security. We have seen it in the way they exclude sensitive items from the total budget count. Have you noticed the federal government never includes the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare or its own retirement system in the total of the national debt? Examples can go on ad nauseam.

Today the public is being told we face a $15 trillion national debt. This is perhaps the biggest lie of all. The reality of what we, our children and our grand children into infinity truly owe is a national debt in excess of $112 trillion, which is at least seven times greater than the figures reported by that gang of public elitists in Washington.

What we are talking about is the total of all the actual debt along with the unfunded liabilities created by congressional entitlement programs it has heaped upon the backs of the American taxpayer. On top of that we must include the unfunded liabilities that federal government has levied upon the fifty states with laws, regulations and mandates all imposed without funding.

According to a report from the American Enterprise Institute, if the federal government stopped using multiple sets of books and placed all existing and future obligations in a single ledger the current national debt would be $107 trillion. If the non-federal outstanding bond debt is included that total jumps to $112 trillion in the red.

With all of that red ink in the ledger, our politicians still cry out for more tax revenue, when in their heart of hearts they really know that a massive cut in spending is the only way the problem of indebtedness can ever be resolved. It is not a balanced budget that answers our problem. It is a reduced budget. Everyone in elected office knows that is the truth…and they fear it. Calling for reduction in services or entitlements they view as sure death at the ballot box. So, they answer the people with more lies and bigger promises.

I only know about government waste at a very small level, but I know it occurs everywhere. When I was on active duty, most military units kept a "wish list”. This list was made up of all those things we would like to have in our organization, but were not in the budget. However, we knew that the usual practice was to receive a telephone call from our finance people just a few days before the end of the fiscal year. We would be told to submit requests for all those things we had placed on the "wish list”. The logic was, if the entire command budget was NOT spent, we could not expect any increase for the upcoming year…. and everyone wanted an increase. It almost goes without saying that in most cases, our wish list requests were honored. Variations of such practices take place in just about every governmental office in the country, regardless of how much they cry out they can barely make payroll.

It is reported that the federal government actually takes in about $2.1 trillion each year. That is hard cash, but not enough to pay for congressional excesses, meaning they borrow even more money from the public and other nations.

It is impossible for me to believe that we couldn’t find at least ten percent of that $2.1 trillion that is wasted, lost or used to fill political "wish lists” such as those pork barrel earmarks. Just think about it for a moment. Almost everyone has been forced to reduce his or her standard of living during this recession. The only people who are still spending wildly are elected officials. With some "real” belt tightening, perhaps my great, great, great grandchild might one day see our debt paid in full and reach a standard of living equal to what we have enjoyed.