Government continues to grow and grow to nightmare proporations. In the beginning, the government was only to provide for the national defense. Now look at everything it meddles in. Do we need all of these departments, committees, agencies, commissions, offices, appointments, etc. ?
And, to top it all off, the federal government can't even secure the nations borders, which could easily be done using only 1% of our existing 2.6 million active military, guard, and reserves.
And, where the hell is Bush's veto pen? He has essentially rubber-stamped all of the irresponsible spending and borrowing. We have about 4 times more debt now than we did after World War II (adjusted for inflation; see graph).

Government is FOR SALE. They will never reform by themselves. Only the voters can do it (peacefully) by merely doing the easy, simple, non-partisan, safe, peaceful, and responsible thing they were supposed to be doing all along: vote out irresponsible incumbents.

Thus, there is no mystery why our federal government is fiscally and morally bankrupt. There is no transparency. Look at the irresponsible way Congress spends, while our troops risk life and limb.

Now we also have government and the Supreme Court spying illegally on its citizens, seizing citizens land via abused eminent domain laws, incarcerating people indefinitely without charging them with a crime, pandering and bribing the people with the people's own tax dollars, $8.2 trillion in National Debt, GPBC and pensions $1.6 trillion in the hole, mismanaged and plundered Social Security and Medicare, and abused presidential pardons, etc.
Clinton pardons Dan Rostenkowski
Clinton pardons 140 felons

How can you have responsible and accountable government if it is above the law ?

You can't. And we don't.

For voters that don't believe there is a historical precedent for anti-incumbent voting, they need to look at history. There have been years in the last 60 years when voters got fed up and voted out almost half of Congress.

Young voters should perhaps be more concerned about this than anyone, because massive debt is being piled onto them.

127 years is how long it would take to pay off the $8.1 trillion National Debt if you started paying back enough each day to keep the national debt from growing larger every day.
That would require that we pay more than the $1 billion in interest that we have to pay each day.
That would also require that we stop borrowing $1 billion per day to pay that interest.
Thus, it will cost approximately $2 billion per day (in a sense).
Thus, if the federal government ever had the discipline to do this (which is doubtful), stopped borrowing, and started paying $1.01 billion per day on the $8.1 trillion national debt, it would take 127 years to pay it all off, and the total interest paid would be $38 trillion (in 2005 U.S. dollars). But, that's only possible if nothing bad happens along the way. It could be that the problem is now too large to ever be resolved. If so, some terrible economic times await us in the not too distant future. Many respected economists, with sophisticated computer models, vast amounts of data, and history, are now starting to draw the same conclusion: we've got a serious debt problem.

It is immoral to be heaping so much massive debt onto future generations. Also, it's highly unlikely they will ever be able to absorb that much debt. Especially, with 77 million baby boomers that will soon begin to earn less, pay less tax, spend less, and want to draw Social Security and Medicare entitlements that have already been plundered (and still are being plundered, and are underfunded). And, there's also a pension problem in this country, in which the PGBC and pensions are $1.6 trillion in the hole. Like the S&L scandal/bailout, tax payers will get stuck with that debt too. And, China, yesterday announced that they are going to start reducing their exposure to our irrresponsible debt situation. It's a Catch-22. It probably spells more trouble for the falling U.S. dollar.

But, it's not just the $8.1 trillion national debt that poses a serious problem.

It is the potential culmination of many pressing problems simultaneously.

In fact, a energy shortage, alone, could be the catalyst for an economic disaster.

We all need to vote to clean house, and keep doing it until bought-and-paid-for politicians get the message, and start proving that they are responsible, and stop looking the other way.

Until then, none of the incumbents deserve to stay, and that is the price they should pay for looking the other way.

Thus, I hope the voters will give Congress a very simple test.

Ask Congress to do these things now:
[1] CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
[2] ONE PURPOSE PER BILL
[3] BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT
[4] STOP PLUNDERING SOCIAL SECURITY
[5] SIMPLIFY THE TAX SYSTEM
[6] ENFORCE THE LAW
________________________________________
Who could argue against any of that ?

If I make a mistake when balancing my check book I usually get fined...and end up having to go without something else I planned on because of the error.

Our government is already funding those "fines" with more loans. How long can this go on before we just fall short and have to go without?

I don't know, but I know I don't want to find out!!!

This is supposed to be the wealthiest nation in the world. Why can't our government manage it's resources responsibly like it expects its own citizens to do?

Just the other day (15-JAN-2006), I heard Steve Forbes say the government was printing too much money.

Also, last week, China reported it was worried about buying more of our debt, and was going to start shifting to other currencies (e.g. EUROs).

December 2005 saw the biggest jump in prices in the last 5 years (i.e. inflation).

I knew this was going to happen.
The Federal government now only has one choice left: print more money

That's because they don't know how to slow spending.

But still, over on the watchblog, and in the news, some are still saying the economy is great, interest rates are low, inflation is low, and everything is fine.

Well, I don't buy it.
It's merely an illusion due to massive borrowing and spending, and there will be consequences some day.

The National debt is so large now, it would take 127 years to pay it off (if we stopped borrowing $1 billion per day and also started paying back $1 billion per day).

Some flippantly remark, "we don't need to ever pay it off" ?

No? Then the tax payers will have to pay are larger percentage of each tax dollar to interest alone.
One quarter of every dollar already goes to pay just the interest alone.

No? Then, we're irresponsibly heaping huge debt onto future generations for the next 127 years.

That alone should be enough to raise some concern.

But, not with some people.
It seems which ever party has the majority (currently the Republicans), the economy is great. The Republicans are saying everything is great because of Bush's tax cuts. That's debatable. I'm personally always for tax cuts, since the government already taxes too much. But, unfortunately, the wealthy ended up getting the largest tax cuts, while median wages have fallen for the past four years.

But, lets take another look at the economy in 6 years.
There will be a lot of hind-sight then, but it will absolutely useless, becuase you don't have to be great in math or be a rocket scientist to know that the debt is much too large, the government is much too large, and the federal government is fiscally and morally bankrupt.

I was talking to my accountant the other day and we got on the subject of Government spending.
She told me something that made me stop and think.
The Government is spending more than it takes in. It is barrowing 1 billion a day. The national debt it 8 trilion dollars and growing.
All this I already knew. It's her last statement that made me pause.
"This country is already bankrupt. We just don't relize it yet."