HomeManifestoEssaysSolutionsFree eBooksQuotations

Working Minds Philosophy of Empowerment homepage

Philosophy & Action Essays
Volume XI - Essay #95: June 2011

"How Bankrupt Is America?"

        U.S President George Dubya Bush ran up more debt than any other person in the history of Mankind. The Republican National Debt stands today at 25 TRILLION dollars, which is not being discussed anywhere. The hooferaw about the annual U.S. Budget Deficit is a diversion, so that the population of America has no clue that they are indentured servants to the fascist Oligarchy.

* *          * *          * *          * *

SOME HISTORY
        The U.S. National Debt stood at $1 trillion dollars when Ronald Reagan became President in 1981. That figure included the entire VietNam War.
        At the end of the twelve-year Reagan-Bush Era, the National Debt had been quadrupled, to $4 trillion. (The Republicans com¬plain about imaginary ‘tax and spend’ policies while their program is to cut taxes and borrow and spend.)
        Bill Clinton’s first term saw the National Debt increase slowing down to only 25 percent, and in his second term, he produced a balanced budget AND a budget surplus.
        Republicans cannot get around these facts as facts, so they yell and scream about false ‘smokescreen’ issues such as the annual budget and abortion and gay marriage and Social Security.

        When Dubya became President the official Republican National Debt stood at $5.7 trillion. The official U.S. National Debt is today $14.8 trillion. So how is the Republican National Debt up to $25 trillion?

        Simple.
        The Reagan-Bush-Bush team stole all the money from Social Security. They stole $2.7 trillion from the very solvent Social Security fund. The reason the Republicans scream (falsely) that Social Security is bankrupt is because they traded the money for Treasury Bills, which must eventually be paid back. Somebody has to pay that debt, and if the Republicans shut down Social Security, then the Oligarchy won’t owe a dime to the U.S. Treasury.

        The September 2008 bailout of quasi-governmental mortgage lenders Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac left the U.S. government holding $5.4 trillion in bogus loans. The Republicans’ solution is of course to blame Barack Obama, who wasn’t even elected to be President yet.

        So far that makes a mere $22.9 trillion dollars of Republican National Debt.
        The bailout of Wall Street of $700 billion became law in October 2008, and helped Obama get elected. The bailout of the U.S. automobile industry was $1 trillion, mostly between Barack Obama’s election and him being sworn in as President. (The Republicans blame him anyway, and that works because the Sheeple are willfully ignorant.)
        That makes $24.6 trillion of Republican National Debt on the day that Barack Obama became President. This does not include consumer debt, real mortgage debt, or various off-the-books debt run up by Dubya, such as the cost to bring troops and equipment back from Iraq and Afghanistan, or the $3 trillion that Bush refused to spend to repair U.S. infrastructure. It also does not include the $3 trillion debt of local and state governments, or the $1 trillion in shortfalls on state & local pension funds.

MEANWHILE
        The interest on that $25 trillion Republican National Debt (over-simplified calculation of 4% per year) comes to a minimum of $1 trillion each year, thus $2.5 trillion so far in interest added to the Republican National Debt inherited by President Obama.
        The interest itself is merely extortion money paid to the Oligarchy. Their lobbyists prevent levying the taxes necessary to pay down the Republican National Debt, and we hand the Oligarchy a trillion dollars a year – for nothing in return.

RECAP
        President Bush 43 arrived at the White House with $5.7 trillion in National Debt on the books and when he left the White House he handed debt of at least $24.6 trillion to Barack Obama. That increase of $18.9 trillion is indeed the all-time record.

        The total of $25 trillion debt can only be paid down from revenue received by the U.S. Treasury. There is no option to default: The American and Chinese and Saudi oligarchs will not permit any such thing. So the U.S. taxpayer is stuck with ‘paying the piper’.
        The ultimate solution is Reason-Based Taxation, but that is not yet in force, and in fact is little known.
        Which leaves the decimated U.S. Middle Class and-or the U.S. Wealthy Class to pay that bill.

* *          * *          * *          * *

        Or how about making the Republicans pay off all that debt racked up by Dubya?
        There are just over 300 million people in the United States - men, women, and children; Working Class, Middle Class, Wealthy Class, and Oligarchs.
        Simple division results in a figure of $417,000 per Republi¬can voter, $167,000 per Republican citizen, or $83,000 owed by every man, woman and child in America. Yup, that includes hospitalized seniors, imprisoned felons, toddlers, illegal aliens, Aryan skinheads, members of Congress, and the fascist Oligarchs – and every Libertarian and Communist and Green and Democrat and Republican voter, and every non-voter, too.
        Every single resident of the United States is an indentured servant, and the Republican National Debt grows by a trillion dollars each year because the real issue of a bankrupt America is getting no attention by our government, nor by our media, nor by We The People.
        Your children and your grandchildren today each owe a mini¬mum of $83,000 as their share of the Republican National Debt. Plus accrued interest until the debt is paid off.
        Go ahead, tell your kids and grandkids this fact. And be sure to tell them how your vote for Republican candidates produced this legacy. The hard part is going to be telling them how YOU are going to pay off YOUR $83,000 share.

        No idea how? Corporations now pay ten percent of the taxes that they paid during the Fifties economic boom. The net worth of the Oligarchs grew by thirty percent since the Bush Tax Cuts began. Reason-Based Taxation starts from the premise that since the Wealthy Class (of every country) owns 85 percent of everything, they should pay for 85% of the government’s activity.

        The Wealthy Class has all the money, so the People have the right to bill them for the Republican National Debt. Republicans whine, but there is no recourse. If the folks with all the money do not pay the debt, how can the folks with no money pay it?
        Oh, yeah: Indentured Servitude! A return to feudalism, with the aristocracy getting all the benefits and the peasants working hard their whole lives with no end in sight, no relief – their children and grandchildren doomed to the same and worse.
        We already have roll-backs on the right to unionize, roll-backs on health and safety laws, roll-backs on pollution standards, assaults on Medicare and Social Security and health care and pensions, roll-backs of personal bankruptcy law.
        The fascist U.S. Supreme Court is cancelling the Bill of Rights and class action lawsuits – there is no way to stop their Federalist & P.N.A.C. agenda short of impeachment. (Revolution is necessary, violence is wrong!)
        And the Republican agents of the Oligarchy have plans to cut the minimum wage in half, and to eliminate the Department of Education, shut down the Environmental Protection Agency – pollution is good? – and defund the Food & Drug Administration - E. Coli for all!

        Given that the Republican Party ran up all this debt and avoids any possible solution by shouting about their ‘smoke-screen’ issues, the knee-jerk response is to shout back. Not a bad idea, but not enough either. Congress shouts back and forth, delaying official appointments, fiddling with the budget, and cutting funds for the starving poor, for returning veterans, for fire & police & libraries – they have earned the label ‘Do Nothing Congress’.
        The Republican Party will not listen, their attention is on campaign funding from the Oligarchs, and their shouting drowns out legitimate and fact-based commentary, while the Oligarchy happily racks up more trillions.

* *          * *          * *          * *

        The Gross Domestic Product of the United States of America is running just under fifteen trillion dollars per year. Comparing that figure to the 25 trillion of the Republican National Debt gives the outstanding debt as 165% of G.D.P.
        The problem? If you have an annual gross income of $50,000, the equivalent would be unsecured debt of $83,000; if you have annual gross income of $100,000, then your unsecured debt would be $165,000.
        In either case, you will never pay that off from your existing income. You can no longer file for bankruptcy. And neither can the U.S. of A. So the U.S. must bring in revenue from new sources – regardless of the annual budget – and the Oligarchy and the Wealthy Class are the folks who have all the money.

        We The People have to wake up. We must Speak Truth To Power. The Class War is perpetual, and to do nothing is to surrender.

[copyright 2011 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]


jump to Essay #96

back to Working Minds Essays Index Page

Index of All Issues of the 'WMail' philosophy ezine [2000-2007]

back to Working Minds Philosophy homepage