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By Mike Gray
Whenever you hear about “the battle of the budget” and government debt remember “SWUMM”:
It stands to reason that the only real source of revenue for the federal government is us, the taxpayer. The only way the government can continue to fuel its insatiable appetite is by taxing us more, which in fact is continually the case. But where does it end? When we’re taxed at 100 percent? And even then, do you honestly think the money would be used to pay down debt? Get real.
I don’t think the yahoos in Washington have the faintest clue – not an inkling – of what it’s like here on the front lines of Real America. We must rattle the cages of our elected officials as much as possible, demanding fiscal restraint; we must scream and holler and send e-mails and march in tea-party rallies – but in the meanwhile, you’d better start taking some individual action. Sell the unneeded stuff. Pay off your debts. Take care of yourself.
Can this really be true?
[T]he unfortunate fact is that right now every single penny of tax revenue collected is spent on just five entitlement programs: Social Security, Welfare, Unemployment, Medicare, and Medicaid ["SWUMM"].
This means that even if you cut every other program to zero you cannot balance the budget because you must still pay interest [over $400 unpaid billion in 2010] and it is obvious that you cannot cut defense to zero. Slash it, yes, but cut it to zero, no. [Emphasis added]
Worse, all the money taken in via taxes has been spent. It’s gone. Congress stole it and used it to make the deficit look smaller than it was. Those so-called “Special Treasuries” in the so-called “lock box” are a bare promise without anything behind it, as they’re non-marketable. To redeem them Treasury will have to issue actual marketable securities. — Karl Denninger
Lewis’s article is here.
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