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QUOTATION: People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote - a very different thing. - Walter H. Judd

2004-09-13 - 9:20 a.m. TO WHOM DO WE OWE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DEBT? And did you know that the We is WE THE PEOPLE? All this time I’ve thought Ed and I just owed the balance of the mortgage on our home and a few insignificant bills. Now I find out that we owe another $50,000, $12,000 of which is federal debt to foreign interests. And I guess another $38,000 of the National Debt – not sure to whom we owe that – bonds that will eventually come due, I suppose...and the Social Security account? I’d never thought about the federal debt in exactly that way before, had you? I just read Michael Hodges’ Grandfather Economic Report to expand upon what Mark wrote in his e-mails. Of course, then I wondered “Just who is this Michael Hodges?” Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner for excellence in economics, wrote in various letters to Michael Hodges: "I certainly commend you for the Grandfather Economic Report, and for the imaginative way in which you have displayed data highly relevant to very important issues. I am impressed. The analyses are excellent. Your objectives are ones I fully endorse.” Who was the idiot that said about debt, "We owe it to ourselves, so it’s no big deal if debt goes up." This chart proves Americans owe a huge amount to foreign interests - - and that's a very serious 'deal'." In addition to its reduced private sector share of the economy, America's defense spending is a significantly smaller portion of total federal spending than before, and the nation is running massive trade deficits as the world's largest debtor nation while before it was a major creditor nation with trade surpluses, its manufacturing base has significantly declined, and America is now dependent on 62% of its oil from abroad compared to the time of World War II when we were self-sufficient regarding oil and even an exporter of oil. [While I can appreciate the sentiment here, it is a bit of a run-on sentence.] And, trying to play world policeman and failing to face up to the new conditions posed by the end of the Cold War has stretched thin our significantly reduced military capacity to protect America's homeland. We still haven’t paid off the debt from the Vietnam War. It was only during the Clinton Administration that we ran this country with a budget surplus – that doesn’t mean we’d paid off the debt we’ve been running up over the years. It merely means we’d been living within our means during those years and had a bit left over. This cartoon summarizes rather well what is happening right now – just substitute Iraq for Vietnam on the fur stole of the voluptuous young lady. Urban needs still look very much the same – barefoot, ragged and unkempt. Republicans were always supposed to be fiscal conservatives - what went wrong? Maybe John Kerry needs to bring out the flip-charts ala Ross Perot to demonstrate and make clear our fiscal position and the need for some reforms. email: Visit the U.S. National Debt Clock Electoral College Vote - Current Current Iraq Body Count previous - next