Well, hate to disagree, but I disagree. WE are to blame. Not only did we allowed it to happen, we begged for it to happen. We demanded that the nation spend $16 trillion since 1980 on a failed education system, we demanded that farmers be paid for not planting, we demanded that unemployment cover 2+years, we demanded cheap Chinese products at walmart, we demanded all these things and our representatives gave it to us. An now we have buyers remorse.
Dr. Hendrickson, isn't this hyperbolic? VP Biden last night assured me that all government programs are solvent and stabilized and we have nothing to worry about. I was able to sleep very soundly last night knowing that Obama and Biden are at the helm of USS Solvency.
“Today, a mere two decades later, we have quadrupled the national debt again, to $16 trillion.”
Yes, the gubmint is spending like crazy but it is also due to the miracle of compounding interest.
I also saw the projection 20 years ago or so.
There is no “fix” for this mess other than an ugly reset.
Key culprits in my view:
Woodrow Wilson (for ushering in the area of big, activist, interventionist Government)
FDR (for ticking that up by several degrees of magnitude)
LBJ (no explanation needed)
Richard Nixon (gave rapidly expanding government a Middle American Republican face, and through selfish stupidity opened the door to Democrats taking power)
Jimmy Carter (his defeat of Ford ushered in the era of Bailout Nation)
Tip O’Neill (he never really let Reagan do the things he needed to do to get Federal spending under control)
George H. W. Bush (that milquetoast campaign style of his gave us the Age of Clinton)
George W. Bush (for that massive prescription drug program that was not paid for)
Barack Hussein Obama (no explanation needed)
Who is to blame? I’d say all our grandparents and great-grandparents who voted for FDR and worshipped until the day he died, followed by our parents and grandparents who voted for LBJ. War on Poverty? Poverty kicked our butts!
Finally, we’re to blame, ‘cause we failed to down the “hammock.”
Ever since then we have continually enlarged “entitlements” and made them “non-discretionary” spending so we cannot even cut them.
We need to accept it. The budget has to be cut. Most of the room for cutting is in Entitlements. Most of what NEEDS to be cut is in Entitlements. If that means people are going die because they don’t get government cheese, or Medicare and Medicaide won’t take of their illness, then we have to accept that. It is better than bankrupting the country.
Ping for later.
We the People....too comfortable letting activist liberals erode Washington from within for 100years.
Real Constitutionalists have always tried to ignore DC...rather than actively working to keep its powers limited and fenced in.
"The Republicans must share in the blame for the government’s fiscal woes. Other than Ron Paul, what Republican has refused to vote for expansions of government"
Have at it Paul haters. FYI, I certainly wish yall listened to me in 1999 and voted Steve Forbes instead of the idiot Bush. I told you so.