Below is a letter to the editor of The Sheridan Press submitted by Elena K. Campbell of Sheridan. Since there is no guarantee that the Press will print letters, we are happy to make them available here.
U.S. Debt is currently in excess of $33 trillion. How did we get here? The Budget Act of 1974 has been ignored since the 1990s. Instead of 12 single subject spending bills that can be vetted as the budget is renewed, legislators have allowed the clock to run out with ensuing threats of pending government shutdown. To avoid this discomfort, Continuing Resolutions with huge omnibus spending packages are passed with not a single subject reviewed.
The US credit rating has been recently downgraded. De-dollarization is underway. We are losing reserve currency status. People around the world are reticent to use US bonds to trade. They are trading amongst themselves, bypassing the US dominated SWIFT trading system. Deficit spending (exporting debt) will no longer be an option. It is going to be a very painful adjustment for us, no matter how we slice it. This morass is decades in the making.
Americans understand that monetary inflation, (which is what the US government with the Federal Reserve have been doing for decades with all the debt creation,) leads to price inflation. The average American is paying $700 more per month than this time last year for the same goods and services. This is untenable for most, and it is accelerating.
Pork barrel spending continues and K-Street lobbyists stay happy.
The US House holds the purse strings and leverage. It is up to the House to create the spending bills and get them over to the Senate. House Republicans, with a slim margin, made a deal with Speaker McCarthy that he would adhere to the Budget Act of 1974 in a (very late) attempt to correct course.
The House managed to get a few single spending bills over to the Senate (some 80% of the budget) which are still sitting over there. That was a good start, but instead of completing the rest of the single spending bills, House members were sent home for six critical weeks. Returning to Congress, the time clock had run out. Again, backs were against the wall. An agreement was made, under threat of shutdown, to pass another Continuing Resolution for a few months, adding 1.5 trillion to the debt. McCarthy got rolled. The final agreement with the executive branch wound up being that there will be NO debt ceiling, and that it will go unaddressed until March, 2025. Forfeited were the strings and leverage.
For this abysmal failure, McCarthy got fired. Perhaps with a new Speaker, the rest of those 12 spending bills can be completed and sent to the Senate. But this Congress has limited time to get its act together. Let’s hope they quit the bickering and get it done.
Fantastic win for new Speaker Mike Johnson just now. From all I've seen, this Constitutional Attorney will do a much better job than McCarthy whose name was removed from above the door this morning before the vote. Hopefully, our new Speaker will keep everyone in town to complete the single spending bills, and to address urgently needed border security. I hope we will all be able to conclude that Matt Gaetz did us a big favor.
Amen! Well said. Hopeful that Jordan will be the man and will feel the weight of the task. The people have awakened and business as usual will not be tolerated anymore.
Elena K. Campbell, please, consider running for a local office. We need people in government who understand that we will not spend our way out of debt, and that the money will eventually dry up. Then what? We need to be a citizenry. A precinct citizenry, a county citizenry, and a state citizenry to have a chance to shoulder the burden of the self-inflicted hardships to come.
Thank you for posting this, neighbor. Yes! Our editor at the Sheridan Press posted this the day after I submitted it. I honestly think she is interested in receiving varying voices, so long as they are not of a partisan 'sniping' ilk. ALL Americans are facing these battles. Our struggle is non-partisan on so many of the biggest issues. United States solvency is one those issues. Cheers and let's keep up our collective efforts.