Have you checked lately to see how much you owe toward the federal debt? If you have not, it is a good idea to look occasionally to see just how deep of a hole our politicians have dug for us. It has reached a point of being completely unmanageable and you know who will suffer the consequences, “we the people.”
As of Aug. 1, every person living in the United States owed $52,943 on the national debt. Every household owed $138,240.
We know statistically that only about half of the households in the United States pay any federal income tax. Therefore, if you look at the tax-paying household’s indebtedness, it would probably be $276,480. If that isn’t scary enough, spending in FY2013 by the U.S. Government approached $3.5 trillion. Broken down to households in the U. S. that would be $27,700 per household.
How incredibly insane is that out of a body supposedly looking out for us?
There are many reasons for this massive debt accumulation not the least of which are chronic unemployment, wasteful, duplicative and inefficient federal programs, senseless foreign aid, wars, unearned entitlements, fraud and in general too much Federal Government.
One massive federal program is the Lifeline program began by Ronald Reagan to insure landline telephones for the indigent. It has morphed into a $2.2 billion cell phone fiasco for wireless customers and taxpayers.
Under the Obama administration, it has increased exponentially from $819 million during George W. Bush to $2.2 billion presently. Ronald Reagan once said, “The closest thing to immortality is a government program.”
This cell phone program proves that no matter how corrupt, misguided or inefficient a government program becomes, it is never stopped. It is estimated at least 41 percent of those with Lifeline cell phones cannot or did not prove eligibility. In a study recently, a young woman went to three vendor booths in one day and received Lifeline cell phones from each one without divulging her employment, income or financial status. How telling of a runaway program to fleece the wireless customers and taxpayers.
Cell phone use has become pandemic and ridiculous. You cannot go anywhere without being annoyed by someone talking on a cell phone. They are everywhere: checkout lines, drug stores, doctor’s offices, walking down the street, fast food establishments and even the public restrooms. They have become an annoyance rather than the blessing intended for the elderly and indigent. I am sure old Ronnie did not envision this scourge on society.
This program is minuscule compared to some of the other wasteful expenditures of the Federal Government, but an example of something intended for good ending dreadfully expensive and bad.