Does any voter care about the budget?
I can remember back in 1992 when H. Ross Perot was running as an independent against then-President George Bush and the Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton the budget was a huge issue. America had been running budget deficits for decades and by that time, we had only a $4 trillion national debt.
The only president in my lifetime that actually balanced the budget ended up being Bill Clinton. He had raised the top marginal tax rate from 33% to 39.6%, and from 1994 until he left office he had a congress that was controlled by the GOP. If memory serves me correctly, he left office with a budget surplus of around $600,000,000.00 That is pretty significant considering how large the deficits are these days. I can only imagine what if we had stayed on that track.
That was the 1990s. And here we are in a new decade more than twenty years later and it seems like the debt and deficit aren't even a blip on the radar of the average voter. When was the last time you heard a college student mention either issue? No, they're too busy it seems with combating "climate change" and ensuring that men who think they are women are allowed to use the same locker room as your young daughter. Same with middle america. You don't see too many "soccer moms" making a big stink about the over $23 trillion dollars our country's government has spent in excess of tax revenues collected.
I think the reason why is because in our day to day lives, we don't see the debt. We don't think about the deficit. Even though the debt equates to over $180,000.00 per tax payer, we don't see the bill for it anywhere. Sure, we all pay taxes. But nowhere is the evidence of us being so deeply in debt. We can't see it, so most of us don't care.
And unfortunately, we don't even have to. When payment on the debt comes due, we just sell more bonds to China and anyone else who wants to see an almost risk-free guaranteed return for their money. The federal government can keep rolling over the debt indefinitely.
Will it ever end?
The only president in my lifetime that actually balanced the budget ended up being Bill Clinton. He had raised the top marginal tax rate from 33% to 39.6%, and from 1994 until he left office he had a congress that was controlled by the GOP. If memory serves me correctly, he left office with a budget surplus of around $600,000,000.00 That is pretty significant considering how large the deficits are these days. I can only imagine what if we had stayed on that track.
That was the 1990s. And here we are in a new decade more than twenty years later and it seems like the debt and deficit aren't even a blip on the radar of the average voter. When was the last time you heard a college student mention either issue? No, they're too busy it seems with combating "climate change" and ensuring that men who think they are women are allowed to use the same locker room as your young daughter. Same with middle america. You don't see too many "soccer moms" making a big stink about the over $23 trillion dollars our country's government has spent in excess of tax revenues collected.
I think the reason why is because in our day to day lives, we don't see the debt. We don't think about the deficit. Even though the debt equates to over $180,000.00 per tax payer, we don't see the bill for it anywhere. Sure, we all pay taxes. But nowhere is the evidence of us being so deeply in debt. We can't see it, so most of us don't care.
And unfortunately, we don't even have to. When payment on the debt comes due, we just sell more bonds to China and anyone else who wants to see an almost risk-free guaranteed return for their money. The federal government can keep rolling over the debt indefinitely.
Will it ever end?
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