Earlier this week, Uncle Sam’s red-white-and-blue getup, a la Cinderella’s dress, morphed into dirty rags once the clock struck midnight.Earlier this week, Uncle Sam’s red-white-and-blue getup, a la Cinderella’s dress, morphed into dirty rags once the clock struck midnight. If an unpropitious way to start the fiscal year, it seems more honest than the 365 days that preceded. October 1, after all, admitted that the federal government is broke.…
Earlier this week, Uncle Sam’s red-white-and-blue getup, a la Cinderella’s dress, morphed into dirty rags once the clock struck midnight.
If an unpropitious way to start the fiscal year, it seems more honest than the 365 days that preceded. October 1, after all, admitted that the federal government is broke. The days before it, a la Kevin Bacon in Animal House, insisted “All is well!”
The counterintuitive, Baconesque, if you will, message of the government shutdown is: Remain calm. All is well!
The real problem, of course, occurred not on October 1, when rules forced the federal government to spend within its means. It occurred on all those days when legislators could spend all sorts of money that the treasury lacked.
The federal budget deficit reached $2 trillion for the 2025 fiscal year. This occurred because legislators spent $7 trillion — about a quarter of the gross domestic product. This pushed the national debt close to $38 trillion.
Recklessness, then, occurred on all the days when legislators spent money not in the treasury.
