HAD ENOUGH YET?
Welcome to the US
where we enjoy Government
of the Politicians
by the Politicians
and for the Politicians
I don’t usually rant about anything, BUT YET, another election is on the horizon. Will this one be any different? I doubt it. We have yet to get what we have voted for. It shouldn’t be that complicated. Most of us have learned to live within our means. Election after election, candidate after candidate, we are promised that, if elected, they will run government as efficiently as we run our household. Let’s see how that has worked out.
The earliest presidential campaign I remember watching on TV is the 1952 Eisenhower vs. Stevenson contest. My research starts there. I want to see how well the campaign promises were upheld.
Starting with that 1952 election, every elected president; Eisenhower (2 terms), Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon (2), (Ford served but wasn’t elected) Carter, Reagan (2), GHW Bush, Clinton (2), G Bush (2), Obama (2), Trump, Biden and Trump again, have all campaigned on a platform to cut spending and reduce the national debt.
It didn’t matter which political party they were affiliated with. In that period, six of them were Democrats and six were Republicans. However, all those promises were empty. Every presidential term finished with a higher national debt.
Back in 1952 the national debt was $259 Billion dollars. It came out to about $1,640 for every man, woman and child in the US at that time.
In 1981 the debt exceeded $1 Trillion dollars for the first time. That amounted to a little over $4,300 for each of us.
In 2008, we bounced over $10 Trillion in debt. And we were all on the hook for almost $33,000.
Now, it’s just been announced our country is $40 Trillion in the hole. Just to give you a visual idea of that amount, it’s $40,000,000,000,000.00! That’s about one-third of all the money in the entire world. And we owe it! Every single one of us living in the US would have to come up with about $117,000 just to get us even.
So, who is benefitting from all this borrowed money floating around? Well, in the at large US population, an estimated 7.5 – 9% of us are millionaires. Our US government though, is a different story. Every single president since 1952 was a millionaire. Our elected congressional representatives and senators are also doing just fine, thank you. More than 50 % are millionaires (more than 70% of senators! Sometimes referred to as the “millionaires club”).
It’s much easier to achieve when you are provided reimbursement for meals, lodging, pension eligibility after five years, travel expenses and only need to work an average of 165 days yearly to make $174,000, compared to the 250 days for the rest of us to make a median income of about $65,000.
So, I’ve come to the conclusion that it really doesn’t matter who we vote for. The fact is, the government takes care of itself. We will only hear from government at election time when we’re told, if they get our vote, they will work for us. (Really?)
It’s really no surprise that politicians rank last in trustworthiness. You want a good life? Don’t depend on this government. It’s up to you!