The U.S. has had the idea of a debt ceiling for a long time. Through the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s the debt ceiling was raised but only by small amounts. Why in the late 80’s and through today has the debt limit been raised so fast? Yes, we have had wars to fund and recession we have tried to spend our way out of, but that does not tell the story of the past 30 years. Surely, we have not needed 20-30 years of record spending. Has the government promised us more then they can deliver in order to get elected?

We all like our promises. We like politicians who make promises to us and we elect them, even when those promises just cost the country more and more.

For years some politicians and others have warned us about our entitlement spending. Do they really know what they are talking about? Are entitlements really a root cause of our spending issues?  To the right is a chart of our government expenditures since 1950. The chart shows what, I am sure you have seen a lot of over the past few weeks. While this shows we have a problem it does not help us understand how to solve the issue. Let’s take this this chart down one more level, and look at government expenditures by major category.  In this chart you can see that entitlement spending in social security and Medicare having been spiking. Nearly headed straight up. Defense spending also has a very steep trend.

I am sure you have heard both Democrats and Republicans blame either entitlements or defense spending for our current issues. While it is a hard message to hear, we obviously cannot continue this spending trend. If we continue to elect only people who say what we want to hear how can we expect this to change. Politicians tell us they will pay for this or buy us that because it helps them get elected. Have we become like spoiled children clinging to which ever parent will buy us the most?

We have to demand more from our leaders? We have to demand more from ourselves. We must be willing to make hard choices and those hard choices cannot be to have the rich pay more taxes. As you can see from those charts, increased revenue cannot keep up with these trend lines without sucking it all dry.

The following video from Bankrupting America does a great job and explaining all of this. May we all, democrat, republican, independent demand more.