The Big Picture

Democrats are anxious to get a healthcare bill, any healthcare bill, passed as soon as possible.

What else explains the difference between the official PRESBO rhetoric and the reality of congressional sausage making?

Their argument is that we have to do something, anything, to save our healthcare system.

But the reality is they just want to change the debate.

The hard debate is whether this enterprise is something the federal government should undertake, so let’s get that out of the way. They’d rather be debating the ins and outs of how the system will work. They like making rules. So let’s ram this unpleasant business down everyone’s throat so we can get to the fun stuff (like figuring out ways to pay for it).

The problem is this particular debate shouldn’t be occurring at all.

Pretend for a moment that government run healthcare is a great idea, and that everyone is for it.

The reality is that no matter how good or bad it is we cannot afford it.

Our nation is broke. The current national debt is around $11.7 TRILLION (one one, seven zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero dollars) and growing by leaps and bounds every day.

Federal tax receipts for 2008 totaled $2.52 TRILLION (ignore for a minute that receipts are going down).

If we could somehow get some fiscal sanity and start saving 10% of receipts (to pay the debt down) and also have our debtors stop all interest from accruing (so we only pay the current principal) it would take us 46 years to get back to zero!

46 years. And that is a very simple payback estimate. In reality it can’t be paid back. (Very likely we will do the dishonorable thing and inflate our way out of this mess – read this if you want further proof our government is selling us out)

So the real debate right now should be how to get fiscal sanity back into the federal government. But that’s grown up work.

And we have a government full of clowns.

Remember, debt is slavery.

(Maybe that’s why they keep increasing the national debt?)