by WorldTribune Staff, August 2, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
Since the founding of the United States of American, its citizens have accumulated, according to a Federal Reserve estimate, $152 trillion.
According to a U.S. Treasury Department report, the federal government has amassed $142 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded obligations.
The staggering figure equates to the bloated federal bureaucracy tapping into 93% of all of America’s wealth.
The government’s $142 trillion shortfall amounts to:
• $430,252 for every person living in the U.S.
• $1,098,087 for every household in the U.S.
• 5.2 times annual U.S. economic output (GDP).
• 30 times annual federal revenues.
Just Facts Daily noted in an Aug. 1 analysis:
Federal law requires the U.S. Treasury to publish an annual report that details the government’s “overall financial position.” In addition to the national debt, the “Financial Report of the United States Government” also includes the government’s explicit and implicit financial commitments, such as:
federal employee pensions and other retirement benefits like healthcare.
environmental liabilities like contaminated nuclear sites.
unfunded obligations for social insurance programs like Medicare.
The non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GA) noted that such “fiscal exposures represent significant commitments that ultimately have to be addressed.”
The GAO stresses that ignoring these exposures can “make it difficult for policymakers and the public to adequately understand the government’s overall performance and true financial condition.”
Legacy media is doing all that it can to ensure the public does not adequately understand.
“Although the Treasury published the report in February, Google News indicates that no major media outlet has mentioned it. Meanwhile, the same outlets have frequently reported on the national debt and federal budget, which are incomplete measures of the federal government’s fiscal situation,” James D. Agresti wrote for Just Facts Daily.
The primary components of federal burden include:
• $26.3 trillion in publicly held national debt.
• $16.6 trillion in liabilities that are not accounted for in the publicly held debt.
• $104.2 trillion in unfunded social insurance obligations.
“These figures tally to $147.1 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded obligations,” Agresti noted. “Offsetting this is $5.4 trillion in commercial assets owned by the federal government, leaving a grand total shortfall of $141.7 trillion.”
A scientific, nationally representative survey commissioned in 2020 by Just Facts found that 25% of voters believe the main driver of the rising national debt is military spending. This accords with the reporting of media outlets that frequently blame the debt on military spending.
“In reality, military spending has plummeted from 53% of all federal expenses in 1960 to 17% in 2022,” Agresti noted.
The same Just Facts survey found that another 25% of voters believe tax cuts were the main driver of debt, in accord with news stories that blame the debt on tax cuts.
In reality, federal revenues have stayed at a roughly level portion of the U.S. economy for the past 80 years,” Agresti pointed out.
In the Just Facts poll, 39% of voters correctly identify social spending as the primary cause of rising debt.
Agresti noted: “Moreover, the vast bulk of the government’s unfunded obligations are due to Social Security and Medicare. Thus, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the main drivers of future debt will be Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Obamacare, and interest on the national debt. Under the weight of these, the publicly held debt is due to soar to unprecedented levels over coming decades.”
The GAO warns: “The costs of federal borrowing will be borne by tomorrow’s workers and taxpayers,” which “may reduce or slow the growth of the living standards of future generations.”
Agresti noted: “While some believe the U.S. government can spend and borrow with abandon because it can print money, one of the most established laws of economics is that there is no such thing as a free lunch.”
Economist William A. McEachern explains why:
There is no free lunch because all goods and services involve a cost to someone. The lunch may seem free to you, but it draws scarce resources away from the production of other goods and services, and whoever provides a free lunch often expects something in return. A Russian proverb makes a similar point but with a bit more bite: “The only place you find free cheese is in a mousetrap.
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How is [our] government doing? It has tapped into 93 percent of [our] nation’s wealth added by Editor Two on August 2, 2024
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