Congress Should Stop Using Borrowed Money to run their Offices

The national debt is nothing new to the United States. We have had one since the federal government agreed to take on the war debts of the 13 colonies at the end of the Revolutionary War. Of course, it has not always been as out of control as it is today. Still, it is not a new idea of the left-wing Obama Democrats as the Tea Party seems to claim. In fact, the Tea Party advocates returning to the ways of the Founding Fathers, well, the national debt was their idea. The point is though, many people from numerous political parties and leanings have contributed to the debt. In truth, our military and wars have added large sums to the debt. President Abe Lincoln added about a billion dollars to the debt during the Civil War, when in the early-mid 19th century it was actually almost paid off.

Today the national debt is somewhere around $14.5 trillion, and if you are one of the 300,000,000+ citizens of the USA, you owe about 45k of that. I'm guessing most Americans aren't able to write a check to the Treasury for 45k, so the only way to pay it off is to cut wasteful spending, right? Lets look at a few numbers.

In 2010 the US had revenue of $2.17 trillion. Since we apparently can't run a country on $2.17 trillion, we went ahead and spent $3.82 trillion, borrowing the difference and automatically adding $1.65 trillion to the debt. Interest not included. We spent almost 43% more than we took in. That is astonishing!

There is always bickering in Washington about what programs to gut or cut to crackdown on government waste; why don't we just cut spending in every government program by 43% (or even higher to pay off the debt!) so every government program, department or agency is no longer contributing to the debt.

There are a few Congressman who return money every year to the Treasury and then tout how the rest of the government should be run like their office. Most of these Congressman return somewhere between $5,000 and $150,000 to the Treasury. That works out to literally be between 1% and 10% of their office's budget being returned. These Congressman are still using borrowed money! In order to run a Congressman's office debt free, that Congressman would have to return 43% of their office's budget to the treasury, otherwise, even the ones that do give back money, they are still using borrowed money and adding to the national debt they we all have to pay for.

I suggest you contact your Congressman or Congresswoman and ask them if they return any money from their office to the Treasury, and then explain that unless they return 43% of it they are actually adding to the debt everyday.

I would absolutely love to see a Congressman run their office with 57% of their budget, wouldn't you?