One unifying constant in the U.S. over the past two decades has been both party’s willingness to borrow money during each budget year. To compare this behavior to a family’s budget, it would be like a family that makes $4,000 a month spending $5,000 a month for 20 years. I know what you’re thinking, “Well we have done it this long and nothing bad has happened!” Not yet!

Just like a pandemic or changes in climate, it is really hard to believe that these events will happen no matter how much science indicates they will occur without a doubt. Americans do not respond to cries of wolves. We couldn’t imagine that 9/11 would happen even though commercial airlines from Germany and Israel installed cockpit barriers years before U.S. airlines.

The subprime mortgage crisis that cost taxpayers trillions of dollars at the end of 2008 was another example of writing on the wall that is seen only in the rearview mirror.

The interest on the debt will be one of the biggest line items on our nation’s next fiscal budget. Most of that money goes to finance foreign country’s infrastructure projects and continues to prevent financing our own.

 

Tom Turner

Waterville

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