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Now that April is over and, hopefully, most of us have settled up with Uncle Sam by paying our income taxes, I can't help but wonder why, with all the money we send to Washington, Congress has spent nearly $32 trillion more than they collected.
Well, that is a very complicated issue and I don't have the answers or the time to delve into all that, but suffice it to say the answer is: It's not their money!
They love to get reelected more than they love to take care of our country's finances, so they spend money they don't have, hoping we will appreciate it.
Not me.
I like paying taxes.
What?, you say. Who likes paying taxes?
Well, I like a strong defense. I like good roads and bridges. I like a strong judicial system. I like helping people who are unable to help themselves. I like clean, fresh water. I like some regulations that control pollution. Just to mention a few.
The federal government should provide us with things we can't provide for ourselves. I can't start an army and I have never built a bridge or an interstate highway, so I will pay them to do it for me.
So why is it that our government can't balance their budget like we do ours? Do they really know if it was spent wisely or got the results they intended?
The answer is usually no. They just throw money at a problem, with very little accountability. And they waste a lot of money with pork-barrel projects they think will buy them favor and votes back home.
And, finally, they lose track of a lot of money. Here's some examples over the last few years on what your hard-earned taxes are being used for.
The General Accounting Office tracks waste and often recommends changes that Congress needs to enact to get rid of that waste, but Congress listens to them about as well as they listen to us.
For example, the GAO found $281 billion in improper payments, like $872 million in benefits paid to dead people. How about the $50 million we paid to encourage travel to Tunisia, or the $5.1 million to build a new golf course at Andrews Air Force Base, when they already have two golf courses there?
Then there is the $440,000 paid to ski resorts because there was a lack of snow and the $100,000 paid to study whether elderly people make good volunteers. And the $70,000 to study rodents to see if they experience jet lag.
And there is the $100 million improperly spent by federal employees on their government credit cards. Oh, and the $11 million we paid psychics to see it they could forecast foreign threats. The U.S. Department of Education spent $34 million to train people to become smarter shoppers. We recently spent $14 million to build a new Army museum, except we already have 47 of them in the U.S. We spent $1.3 million to study if we are willing to eat insects. And a whopping $36 million to study why our hair turns gray as we age.
The federal government owns 600,000 vehicles, which is one for every six federal employees, and the feds also own 77,000 now-empty government buildings that cost us $1.7 billion each year. Did your Congressional representative tell you that you paid $2 million to see if hot tubs really reduce stress and $1 million to help people get over their fear of going to the dentist?
And don't even get me started on foreign aid, totaling over $50 billion each year and that doesn't include over $100 billion to Ukraine in recent years.
If I were president (scary thought, even for me), I would send a letter to every country on the foreign aid list: "Dear President of (country -- fill in the blank), I know we have been helping you in recent decades, but, right now, we are really running low on cash and are going into debt by the trillions, so I know you will understand we can't help you right now. Please check back in about 10 years or so and I will see if there is anything we can do then. Thank you for being a 'friendly' country."
We could fill this entire newspaper with examples of government spending that has nothing to do with providing us things we can't provide for ourselves, so I will end with this:
We paid $440,000 to elevator attendants to press the buttons in the Capitol Hill elevators. Apparently our congressmen and congresswomen have trouble with numbers.
Who would have guessed?
Folks, we are $32 trillion in debt. How big is a trillion? Well, a million seconds ago was 12 days. A billion seconds ago was 32 years. A trillion seconds ago was 32,000 years!
Do you think it's time for Congress to balance our budget and stop accumulating debt our grandchildren will be forced to pay?
I would like to know what you think. Email me at gregawtry@awtry.com.
Greg Awtry is the former publisher of the Scottsbluff (Neb.) Star-Herald and Nebraska's York News-Times. He is now retired and living in Hubbard Lake. Greg can be contacted at gregawtry@awtry.com.