Happy Tax Day and Happy Birthday, babies of 2016! Every one of you born this year will be born in prison, or, more accurately, debtor’s prison. At the age of zero, when you are neither walking nor talking, you are accountable for $42,000 of the publicly held federal debts, which is now more than $19 trillion, approximately $9 trillion of which was accumulated on President Obama’s watch alone.
At current rates of taxable income — including income taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes and corporate taxes — versus government spending — including welfare spending, entitlement spending, discretionary and mandatory spending, such as defense spending, and totally wasteful spending such as paying a consultant $545,000 to teach people “how to sit before a congressional hearing and answer questions” — the national debt by the end of the decade will be $23.5 trillion, or approximately 86 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.
Further, if nothing is done to change this outgo-versus-income ratio, by the time those 2016 babies turn 18, meaning most of them haven’t even gotten a job yet, their share of the debt will be $68,500. And by the time they reach their early 30s, when most hopefully have a job, but are still trying to figure out how to afford a home and support a family, their share of the national debt will be $117,000.
What is equally sad is that Congress has done little or nothing to address this calamity (and in fact is proposing $57 more next year on discretionary spending than was spent last year). Equally sad is that there are obvious targets for spending cuts, starting with the numerous duplicative spending programs that the government squanders trillions on every year. A recent report by the Congressional Research Service identified 83 overlapping federal welfare programs that cost the U.S. taxpayer $1.03 trillion, which is slightly more than the nation spends on Social Security, Welfare, or national defense.
Further, in 2015 Congress spent $125 billion in what are called “improper payments,” meaning, as just one example, paying welfare benefits to recipients who don’t qualify, or overpaying recipients who do qualify. In 2104 Medicare and Medicaid alone overpaid $77.4 billion on improper benefits. Some of this is government error and stupidity, while some of it is welfare recipients gaming the system. Last year, due to incorrect (mostly false) reporting on their income tax returns, recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit received $17.7 billion in overpayments.
Either way, this and our other wasteful and duplicative spending all contribute to that $42,000 share of the national debt each poor baby born this year is burdened with.
Speaking of wasteful, in 2015 The National Science Foundation spent more than $1 million to teach robots how to dress the elderly.
