Happy Holidays! Are you in the Christmas spirit? Am I allowed to say "Christmas" anymore, or will be I shut down by the PC-police? But this period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a time in which most Americans will tune out the politics. Their main concern is the latest sale at the local mall, rather than the shenanigans in Washington. Let me remind you that now is just as important a time to pay attention. We have some serious issues facing us within the next couple of weeks .. the main issue being the Bush tax cuts. We may also have the DREAM Act to contend with, along with budget battles, union butt kissing and more. But as the lame duck session of Congress continues to battle it out in Washington, you are probably under the impression that your job is done. You did your part in showing up to the polls in November. Wrong. Think about it like this: every dollar that you spend in the stores this holiday season is a dollar that the government has its eye on. The more of your money the government has, the more power the government has over you. While you're out there spending, saving, investing ... whatever ... the money you have worked for you need to remember that there are people in Washington who actually believe that they, not you, are the best people to spend that money. After all ... you belong to the government, right? You don't believe it, just ask them! It is the province of the politicians to determine just how all of these government assets are to be used to make life better for everyone in America. Assets? You, my friend. To many in Washington --- and I'm including no small number of Republicans here - you are nothing more than a government asset. You are to be permitted to keep as much of the wealth that you produce as is necessary to preserve the fiction of a free society. All it takes is just momentary lapses in attention ... those brief moments where you're more focused on jock sniffing and celebrity worship than you are on these people who can use force to accomplish their goals. Stay alert .. or 12 months from now the government will be exercising even more control over your life. There are votes to be bought, and your wealth is the currency.
Alright .. enough of the ranting and on to the warm and fuzzy fact of the day from the Weekly Standard. It has to do with those tax dollars, which the federal government is prepared to seize.
Over the past 20 years, the average interest rate the Treasury has had to pay on money it has borrowed has been 5.7%. But over the past year, the average rate has been 2.2%. That's no small difference given the size of our debt.
... if the current very low rate continues, and our fiscal policy basically follows the track laid out by the president's last budget, then the interest on the debt 10 years from now will be a little over $350 billion. If the rate goes back to the 20-year average, however, interest on the debt 10 years from now will be more like $1.15 trillion. Again, no small difference. Indeed, it is enough to make some prominent elements of our deficit debate seem a little ridiculous.
The increase in annual interest costs in 2015 alone--$557 billion--is nearly six times the additional revenue that is supposed to be collected by letting the higher end of the Bush tax cuts expire, the centerpiece of the current fiscal policy debate in Washington. The increase in interest costs in 2019--$795 billion--is two-and-a-half times the value of all the Bush income tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 that are due to expire.
PrezBo, Nancy Pelosi and the general Democrat mantra is that we can't "afford" to let tax cuts continue for the evil rich. More appropriately, "We can't afford to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires." But even if you increase taxes on these evil rich people, it can't even come close to paying the interest on what the Democrats have spent over the last few years. We don't have a revenue problem, folks. We have a spending problem.
