Michael Swickard
Ever been to marriage counseling and said to the counselor that you, yourself, do not intend to change your behavior at all? That you insist the other person must be the one to change because you are not changing? How did that work out for your marriage?
Welcome to the debate about our national budget problems. Both political parties say they are not going to change their spending habits at all. Wrong. Major change is coming regardless of what they say to the people.
In the last four years our national debt has gone out of sight. Our nation went into debt more in February than in all of 2007. We are borrowing about half of what we spend but that is only the bad news. The putrid news is that Congress is running several scams that will come back to haunt all of us.
The first one works like this: The treasury is out of money. It offers T-bills but most other nations are simply not buying. So it buys its own T-bills. How does that work? Our treasury writes itself a check and then declares it has more money. Kids, do not try this at home.
As our nation runs out of real money, what is likely to happen? I suspect shortly our nation will have to scrap the Social Security system and just stop writing those Social Security checks. Have I got your attention? Good.
A Ponzi scheme
The bad news is I mean it. Even if you depend upon the social security system, our nation has turned a blind eye to the financing, or lack of it, for Social Security. It does not matter if you need the money; our government does not have the money to write you the checks.
For 40 years Social Security has been a Ponzi scheme with no money being saved. Everyone in the media, in Congress and most everyone else knows this. We have no right to look surprised because we knew it was happening. All money collected for Social Security is spent in the year it is collected, and an IOU is issued that says: “When Michael reaches the time when he is due any Social Security benefits tax the citizens of that year for his benefits because we did not save any of his contributions.”
In every Ponzi scheme initially people get money. Then at some point the money runs out. Welcome to 2011.
Now it is time for the recriminations. Go for it. Tell all of us how even though you knew no money was being saved by Congress you feel you should get your money despite ignoring that it was a scam. Tell us as many times as you want why young people today should pay off your intentional ignorance and then themselves do without Social Security as a resource since it is just a scam.
At some point the geezers and geezerettes are just out of luck since they ignored for 40 years the scam that Congress was running. And I am one of them. I have written over the years about the fact it is a scam and that I thought I might not get any return on my investment in the scam. Not happy, but not surprised either.
I could use the money but I know that Congress can only write me a bogus check. Do I want a bogus check? Who is going to cash it? That is the question.
Borrowing with no plan to repay
The money the Congress is borrowing and printing is based on the principle that they do not intend to pay it back. There is no plan to pay the money back. Every politician from both parties really does know these facts. They will still tell you that they will fight for your right to not have to make cuts.
Our federal government is borrowing with no plan to repay. When it comes to cutting, there is no one who is willing to cut anything. How sustainable is that? And the media is talking about the government flush with money and the nation flush with money.
The only thing to do with that statement is to flush it to where it belongs. You have been told.
Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on KSNM-AM 570 in Las Cruces and throughout the state through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.