“A Chicken for Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage.”
— 1928 paid campaign advertisement
While it appears no candidate actually said this, the quote can be traced to a paid advertisement run by local political parties for the 1928 presidential election campaign.
And with all the campaign promises in today’s election cycle, it certainly sounds familiar.
It seems anyone running for office feels compelled to make plenty of wonderful promises — often including lower taxes AND more government benefits.
Such a deal but, sadly, I don’t hear anyone talking about how we’ll pay for it. Please note, my comments are not politically biased, as it seems clear they apply across the board.
My Aug. 2 column, “We Must Act Now to Save the U.S. Economy from Debt Crisis,” argued that we must talk about this “elephant in the room.”
But evidently almost no one wants to, preferring to keep telling us what we want to hear: That we can keep spending more than we pay in taxes and just keep on borrowing the difference.
My column even used a picture of Alfred E. Neuman of MAD Magazine fame with his well-known quote “What, Me Worry?”
I hate to be a downer, but we need to deal with this. We need some real adults to serve as our elected leaders, to tell the American public the truth and then take action to “right the ship.”
The Congressional Budget Office projects a nearly $2 trillion annual deficit for 2024. Add that to current federal debt of around $35 trillion, and we’re talking about some serious money.
The director of the nonpartisan CBO has warned congressional lawmakers that the ballooning national debt and the cost of paying interest on it could become an existential threat to the U.S. economy.
“Rising interest costs will crowd out other possible uses of government resources, and then also pose a risk to our economic stability in the coming decade,” CBO director Phillip Swagel told the House Budget Committee at a hearing on Capitol Hill earlier this year.
This can and will have a serious impact on you, your family and your planning. Just interest at 4% on $35 trillion would be $1.2 trillion, more than our total defense budget and nearly as much as our annual outlay for Social Security.
Swagel went on to report that “under current law, there would not be enough resources to pay the promised benefits of Social Security in 10 years.”
And as our country’s debt becomes more unmanageable, lenders will require higher interest rates to reflect risk.
One ray of light in the CBO report was a key finding that a rise in immigration is projected to have a positive impact on the U.S. economy.
The CBO report noted “Immigration would add to our economy, our labor force would be higher, that means that our income will be higher, our output would be higher, and that in turn would generate additional tax revenue.”
The report went on the estimate that higher net immigration would drive GDP growth of about $7 trillion and increase government revenue by around $1 trillion from what it would have been otherwise.
It is my opinion that we need to have a well thought-out immigration policy designed to allow honest, hard-working and reasonably well-educated candidates that can become productive citizens and truly help generate this kind of economic growth.
So, as you listen to candidates, perhaps it would be wise to get their views on real/practical matters like running a balanced budget, dealing with our national debt, and immigration.
And tune out “chicken in every pot” promises.
