Sowing fiscal chaos

To the editor:

With a debt ceiling deal in hand, an honest conversation regarding national bankruptcy is long past due. What no one seems to acknowledge is that the national debt has only become a problem in our generation. In 1980, U.S. debt was less than $1 trillion. We have added over $30 trillion in the past 40+ years.

There are two paths to bankruptcy: 1) overspend or 2) under-earn. As a nation, we took both paths. On the spending side, we have wasted trillions of dollars on weapon systems that quickly become obsolete, like our aging nuclear missiles, and on pie-in-sky programs like President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense. Trillions more have been spent on military misadventures in places like Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq (twice).

We have also spent trillions of dollars bailing out capitalism — following the mid-1980s savings and loan debacle, the 2008 financial collapse and again in 2020 as businesses failed to plan for Covid.  

But spending isn’t solely responsible for our debt problem. Repeatedly, we have cut revenue when Presidents Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush and Donald Trump significantly cut the nation’s income. GOP tax cuts, largely lavished upon America’s corporations and wealthy citizens, have amounted to roughly half our $31 trillion debt.

When the next debt ceiling debate begins, and it will, I suggest three measures be included.  First, the U.S. no longer engages in unfunded military actions; if the nation chooses to go to war, a dedicated tax must be imposed to pay for it. Second, capitalists are responsible for their own mistakes and myopia; the U.S. government cannot and should not bailout businesses.  Lastly, re-set taxes to their 1980 levels; corporate America and the wealthy have been feeding at the public trough long enough, it is time they gave back to save the country that has treated them so well.

Joseph Cannisi