Off the Editor’s Desk 3-8-23

Interest payments on national debt exceeds defense spending

Over the number of years that I have been writing this column, I have been questioning the national debt and the amount of spending that our national government does and much of it is with borrowed money.

Last week I read an article penned by Casey Harper that stated: “The national debt hit $31 trillion last fall and is well on its way to $32 trillion this year. As that debt grows, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal government will shell out over $10 trillion in the next decade on interest payments alone.”

That is a trillion dollars a year, a sum that looks like this, $1,000,000,000,000.

“To put this $10.5 trillion in perspective, this means that spending on net interest will exceed all defense spending over the next decade.” The article goes on to say that interest costs will be higher than what we are spending on children, “meaning that we will be paying more to service our debts of the past than to invest in future generations.” 

Those future generations will be the ones that will be saddled with that debt and those payments.” For every dollar that the U.S. government will borrow over the next decade, 50 cents will be just to pay interest,” the story relates.

So at present, each citizen of the United States owes $56,715 to cover that national debt. But, that debt will fall on the backs of taxpayers. And being that only about a third of us pay taxes, that means that the taxpayers are burdened with $154,142. So we taxpayers, all better have deep pockets.

I would like to change the subject to our freedom of speech. Last week our Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat from New York) who would put a gag on everyone that has a different opinion than he does stuck his foot in his mouth last week.

He demanded that Rupert Murdoch silence Tucker Carlson and other Fox news hosts. “Order Tucker Carlson and other hosts on Fox News to stop spreading the Big Lie.” Schumer said.

He also mentioned other Fox News hosts, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and others in his letter to Murdoch. The “Big Lie” that Schumer related to is that those hosts are spreading election conspiracy theories that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. They have blamed the Dominion Voting System that they claim gave the White House to Joe Biden.

While, I am putting my faith in the countries legal system, that may be the wrong move, but I hope in the end the truth will come out.

If you already do not know, Dominion Voting System has filed a $1.6 billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News for saying that the election technology company helped rig the 2020 presidential election, as Donald Trump has asserted.

So, I am willing to wait and see how our legal system handles this lawsuit and what happened in the end and maybe we will see if Fox has a leg to stand on or that Dominion can show us that their technology was accurate.

Thanks for reading!     ~Carlton