Most Americans have heard that we currently have a national debt of about $39 trillion and that we are continually adding about $2 trillion in budget deficits per year to that debt.<\/p>\n
However, many Americans don\u2019t realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg of our financial problems.<\/p>\n
We also have about $97 trillion in committed but currently unfunded future liabilities, according to long-term projections.<\/p>\n
If these commitments are honored, the total of our debt and future liabilities is about $136 trillion. The primary components of the massive future liability are unfunded federal employee pensions and benefits and unfunded Medicare and Social Security benefit payments. These commitments are due over a relatively long time frame, but because we continually run large yearly budget deficits, very limited funds are actually directed toward covering these future liabilities.<\/p>\n
We just continue to borrow at record levels and \u201ckick the debt can down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
A major contributing issue to the yearly budget deficits is that America continues to squander a major portion of its wealth (and the lives of its young people) on countless foreign wars and on wasteful spending for the powerful U.S. military-industrial complex. The U.S. defense industry essentially controls many politicians and spends millions per year on lawyers and lobbyists to keep the trillions flowing from Washington, D.C., to it.<\/p>\n
During the past few decades, we have spent much of our money on wars and military hardware and not on our own people and our domestic issues.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump said he would put an end to this wasteful cycle and put America first, but, like the other recent presidents before him, he lied.<\/p>\n
Charles Painter<\/p>\n
West Lampeter Township<\/p>\n
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