The total debt in America today is $58,142,718,773,402...
I was born an American and raised by patriotic parents who paid taxes, participated in community, voted faithfully with conviction, loved Ronald Reagan, and raised up two boys in the land of the free. When I was 4, I developed the initially cute but quickly less so habit of breaking into "It's a Grand Old Flag" at first sight of the stars and stripes. In short, I am a really big America fan.
When did it become so normal for everyone to be steeped in debt? How many people do you really know who are debt free and just enjoying life? Regardless of how robust your income is, it has become so culturally acceptable to embrace debt to try and leverage one more dollar into your pocket now.
Benjamin Franklin once simply stated that "when you run into debt, you give to another power over your liberty." Be
it for purposes of genuine need or ostentatious living we have
not taken those words very seriously. The
daunting figure that hangs over the halls of capital hill and beyond
is in all honesty not what disturbs me the most. I have the utmost
confidence in our ability to stir ourselves, command our abilities, and overcome obstacles of any extent. What worries me most is our casual willingness to charge
forward beyond our means.
Perhaps
in all our long history, we have not been faced with a more
predictable dilemma. The fearsome figure that confronts our country today was
not accumulated in an afternoon and will not be dispersed in an
evening. As the old adage goes: "A thousand mile journey begins
with the first step and can only be taken one step at a time." The
great challenge and call for us will not be to work a
fiscal miracle but to re-approach and affirm once more the virtues
held so dearly by those who went before us. It is among my most
profound dreams to see in my day an America countenanced by a
resolved commitment to fiscal responsibility, a conviction that our
best days are not behind us but before, and an insistency that within
our reach lies a time when our children and theirs can grow up in
what has never before been more rightly blazoned “The Land of the
Free.”
What are your thoughts on debt?
Mark, I really liked how you suggested that patriotism should be the driving force behind lowering the national debt ceiling because lessening the fiscal burden on both taxpayers and government officials alike is something that transcends political views. Patriotism is an ideal that almost all Americans hold, so maybe we can agree that the debt crisis needs to be solved in order to protect future generations. Our ancestors originally came to America to separate themselves from the turmoil in their home countries, and now we have to rely on these countries that loan us money and shoulder our debt to bail us out? It seems to me that the “daunting figure that hangs over the halls of Capitol Hill” is not our debt; it is the countries such as China that we must pay back with interest and our habit of being dependent on them.
ReplyDeleteI agree Mark, the fact that so many Americans are OK with being in debt is not OK with me. It also baffles me as to why people feel comfortable owing others money, especially if you have more than enough money for your basic needs. As you pointed out, the federal government is the biggest culprit of us all when they are supposed to be the ones leading us through decisions and example, but in my opinion, they dropped the ball at the one yard line.
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