Gil Gutknecht: Wasting Away in Spendingville

As Ronald Reagan famously said, “Well, there you go again.”

Team Brandon has just promised another $33 Billion in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. That’s $33 Billion more than they have in the checkbook. But of course their bank (otherwise known as the Federal Reserve) has a very liberal overdraft policy. It will simply print up and/or borrow another $33 Billion and add it to our debt. Or should we say, our children’s debt. 

The Congress will have no choice. Nancy gushed her support during her stopover. The President promised and Congress doesn’t want to be the Grinch who stole the presents. Russian aggression must be stopped…at all costs. According to the Defense Department (at least the Generals who hope to soon be well-paid consultants to the military industrial complex) this is critical. It’s an emergency so there will be no need to find offsets in bloated federal spending elsewhere in the budget. Just ignore the effect that massive deficits will surely have on the highest inflation we’ve seen in forty years. 

That’s not Spendingville’s problem. It’s ours. 

Never mind the fact that we just left tens of billions worth of military hardware in the wasteland otherwise known as Afghanistan. Those same aforementioned Generals have been busily ordering new stuff. Much to the delight of the military industrial complex. 

Spend, waste, repeat. 

What are the odds that much of this next installment of hardware will wind up captured or destroyed by the Russians? This has all the earmarks of serious escalation. Are we stumbling toward a nuclear confrontation that most Americans strongly oppose? And where are our European colleagues? They aren’t as broke as we are. This is their neighborhood after all. Someone please ask these questions. 

Why are our friends on the Left so riveted on defending the borders of Ukraine when they have absolutely no interest in defending ours? They can borrow tens of billions to defend a nation that was until recently best known for its corruption, but they will not finish the wall to protect us. This administration can’t tell Congress the whereabouts of the 40 or so suspected terrorists that were apprehended. How many others have wiggled through the porous net? No one knows. But everyone knows that we are facing an invasion. 

The Left continues to pretend that this invasion is not going to cost many billions. The costs for healthcare, bi-lingual education, housing and other social programs will be astronomical. Texas Governor Abbot understands this, that’s why he’s leasing buses. Other Governors seem unaware that Uncle Joe is airdropping tens of thousands of new dependents into their states every month. Not to worry, good old Joe is giving them free phones. Of course you pay for them as well. 

Then there is the real and very human costs of the mountains of drugs flooding into the country. The fentanyl that is killing so many is costing billions for treatment programs for those who struggle with the consequences of it. 

Indiscriminate employers get cheap labor. But we all pay. 

Now team Brandon is floating the trial balloon of forgiving student loans. It’s fair to assume that this is being focus grouped this as we speak. They know that they have whetted the appetite of those millions of millennials who are struggling to pay for those nearly worthless degrees. Now the Brandonistas must deliver. But how will the rest of America react? Who is bailing out hard working Americans? The ones who struggle to pay their mortgages and monthly bills. Gas and groceries are making that harder each week. How about the young people who went into the military for the GI benefits or those who worked their way through school. What of the folks who actually paid off their student loans?

Consider the bigger question, why should Americans who didn’t go to college be asked to pay for those who did? After all, we’ve been told for generations that a college degree is the best investment that one can make. Why are we considering forgiving loans for such a fabulous investment? If degrees in something that ends in ‘Studies’ are indeed worthless, shouldn’t we be prosecuting the purveyors of these worthless investments?

If Spendingville can continue to spend, borrow and forgive debt without consequence, it’s only a matter of time before they stumble on the final solution. Why not just forgive the entire national debt and start over? They’ve long since given up any pretext of fiscal responsibility or ever paying off the debt. And we’re told we owe the debt to ourselves anyway, right? 

If you think abrogating the national debt is ridiculous, please re-read the first ten paragraphs of this piece and think about all the crazy ideas the Left has advanced over the last decade. 

Former Congressman Gutknecht (MN) served on the Budget Committee when the federal budget was last balanced.