Charge!

by Kerry Thomas

February 6, 2009

Pay close attention to your next credit card statement. Be on the lookout for a charge of some $2,730 – 3,083.

That’s the range of the charge your federal government is making on your account.

You won’t see this charge on your credit card statements. But you’re going to be paying this charge and the interest on it for the rest of your life. So will your children, your grandchildren, and most likely your great-grandchildren.

You, all of your children, every member of your family, all your relatives, every one of your neighbors and every other American is having these charges added to the $35,083 you already owe. Your federal government has rung up, as of 10:41:53 PM GMT February 6, 2009, more than $10,721,546,694,329 in national debt.

And that debt has been growing by an average of $3.45 billion per day, each and every day, since September 28, 2007.

That is money your federal government has spent on your account, a debt that you and everyone you know are going to have to pay.

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. and the Democrats in Congress are telling us they need o spend $819 billion - $925 billion more, over and above that more than $3.1 trillion they already spend in the federal budget, in order to “save” us from a “catastrophe.”

That’s the same argument that was used to justify borrowing $168 billion last year, so the government could send you a $600 check. It’s the same argument that was used to justify borrowing $700 billion last year to give that money to banks with no specifics as to how that money was to be used.

The same government that has spent the surplus Social Security funds and driven that program to bankruptcy, the same federal government that can’t account for $78 billion of the $350 billion they spent on the TARP program, the same government that has now put a tax cheat in charge of the IRS, the same government that hasn’t been able to enact a balanced budget in more than 30 years, is now going to spend nearly a trillion dollars on every liberal pet pork social engineering project under the sun, all in the name of an economic stimulus.

(There was no surplus or balanced budget during the Clinton administreation. Those numbers were just projections, that were never realized.)

Only in Washington could they tell us with a straight face that the solution to the problem caused by too much spending is to borrow and spend even more. Wisconsin’s own Dave Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who doesn’t like being asked about earmarks, actually claims there are no earmarks in this massive bill.

“We simply made a decision, which took about three seconds, not to have earmarks in the bill," he says. "And with all due respect, that's the least important question facing us on putting together this package."

Obey went on to say “If money is spent badly, we want to know about it so we can hold accountable the people who made that choice. And guess what? Regardless of what we do, there will be some stupid decisions made."

There’s an understatement. And as far as holding people accountable for bad spending, Obey need only look in the mirror. Unfortunately, the only people who can hold Dave Obey accountable keep re-electing him to Congress.

Maybe Dave Obey should look at his own taxpayer-sponsored website, where he has a quote from Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution: “No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.”

The federal government cannot spend a dollar that has not first been approved by Congress. Nor can they spend a dollar that hasn’t first been taxed (appropriated) from taxpayers and taken (appropriated) from the private sector.

When asked about the pork projects in the stimulus bill, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. simply said “I won.” Nancy Pelosi said “We won.” Elections do have consequences. Your taxes are going up.

So much for change we can believe in. It’s more like charges we can’t afford.