http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Politics/national-debt-soars-past-13-trillion/story?id=10748382
The U.S. national debt has passed the $13 trillion mark, according to USDebtClock.org, an independent website that tracks the real-time growth of U.S. revenues and spending.
A decade ago, he said, the national debt was $5.7 trillion. By 2005, it rose to $7.7 trillion. As of six months ago, it stood at $12 trillion. The larger the debt grows, the faster the U.S. government's interest payments pile up, which helps explain why USDebtClock.org's national debt tracker jumps hundreds of thousands of dollars in less than a minute.
And as the national debt spirals ever upward at an increasing rate, the degree of dependency that US citizens have on our federal government also increases.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Slaves-to-the-government-dole-94877134.html
Based on Bureau of Economic Analysis data, USA Today reported Tuesday that the portion of personal income received from private sector paychecks declined to 41.9 percent, its lowest point ever, during the first quarter of 2010. The figure was 44.6 percent in December 2007 at the outset of the current recession and 47.6 percent in the first quarter of 2000. By contrast, the personal income received from government programs climbed to 17.9 percent. Add another 9.8 percent for government employee compensation and 27.7 percent of all personal income is derived from government sources. (The remaining 30.1 percent of personal income results from small-business proprietor profits, farm profits, privately funded pensions, investment sales and dividends, and insurance annuities.)
The problem is that government only redistributes income to dependent individuals after taking it from productive individuals, a process that is reflected in tax returns. As the Tax Foundation recently pointed out, 36 percent of all individual returns in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, showed no net tax liability. That is the highest level of non-paying tax filers in American history. As recently as 1990, only 21 percent of tax filers paid no levies. The result of this trend is that millions more Americans today pay nothing for the benefits they receive, which are paid for by productive taxpayers.
The second article linked above raises a good point. Slavery is the outright ownership of one person by another. Indentured servitude is a form of slavery, as well. Isn't a society in which the citizens are dependent upon the government to survive practicing a form of slavery as well? Economic slavery?
Throughout our history, politicians and pundits have often said "America is at a crossroads." Sometimes it was true, as in the final convulsive years leading up to the Civil War when we decided to end slavery. New data on personal income, taxes and dependency makes clear that the country is again at a historic crossroad and another form of slavery is the central issue. There are no iron chains involved this time, but dependence on government for economic sustenance is no less an enslavement.
If I own myself, then I can choose not to hand over money to our government if that money is simply handed to others for their use. But I cannot so choose, so do I really own myself? Or is my person, in the form of the money that I earn by my labor, owned by our government?
Your summary is indeed interesting, Matthew. I might postulate further and suggest that an enslaved person is in fact dependent upon another for their sustenance. So those who are unable to provide for themselves are actually 'enslaved' to the government which provides them the means to live.
ReplyDeleteOur ancestors would have never guessed that we could have about 40% of US population paying for the welfare of nearly 60% of the population (if you include government workers in this group).
Where is our entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic? Where is the government that once rewarded such efforts to provide for one's self and family and thereby encourage the growth and stability of our communities and economy? ... maybe I'm just an idealist...