Our Budget

August 4, 2016

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by John Deere and the National Corn Growers Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary -

The Democratic and Republican Conventions are behind us. Speakers talked about jobs, the economy, National Defense, immigration, and terrorism. All important and serious challenges. What they did not talk about is our ballooning national debt. Our debt has doubled in the last 7 years to nearly 20 Trillion dollars. We can’t continue on this path. It is a roadmap to financial ruin.

Look at Greece. There are other European countries also in trouble. Families can’t live like this. They will go broke. Farmers and small businesses will end up in bankruptcy.

Here is what the non partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has to say about this issue. “High and rising levels of debt will slow income growth, increase interest costs, crowd out important budget priorities, limit the ability of lawmakers to respond to a national problem and increases the likely hood of a fiscal crises. The largest driver of the growth in long term debt is the one area neither candidate has a plan to address - entitlement spending.” Politicians talk all the time about government programs to spend on their voters. That’s the way to buy notes. Our national debt is going up by more than one billion dollars every day – more than one billion every day. That’s not sustainable.

We need entitlement reform - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We need tax reform. Close the loop holes. Squeeze the defense budget. We spend 3 times as much money on defense as China, Russia, and India combined. We have 10 aircraft carriers, Russia and China have 1. Many politicians want to tax more so they can spend more. President Reagan once said “a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take away everything you have.”

We are a rich strong nation and we want to stay that way. Think about the explosion in debt cost, if interest rates go back up our children and grandchildren will be left to pay for our extravagant spending.

If you would like to review my radio shows going back more than 20 years, just go online to www.johnblockreports.com. Have a great weekend.