One of my favorite episodes of “The Office,” titled “Surplus,” is one in which the paper company’s staff becomes divided into two separate, warring factions over a spending decision. One side wants to purchase new chairs. The other wants a new copier. And all of them scream at the boss to make a decision.
This scene is eerily reminiscent of the way in which government hands out funding to special interests who, in turn, grow dependent on the cash flow. And government loves to take advantage of this by raising their level of financing into certain programs. Rather than wean themselves off the subsidies, special interest groups wax poetic about how bad life will become should their government funding be stifled. A Daily Beast article exclaimed that proposed budget cuts in 2017 would kill hundreds of thousands of people. This “sky is falling” tendency makes it very difficult for politicians in need of votes to cut spending at any level of government. And there is certainly cause for panic. But the panic should stem from these special interest strangleholds that cause ceaseless spending increases. And everyone should be worried — especially young Americans.
Young people must not allow ourselves to be swayed by the media-fostered panic the Left plunges themselves into at the mere idea of cutting spending. Spending cuts are sometimes necessary, particularly in a country with $21 trillion in debt. And ours is the demographic with the most cause for concern over ever-increasing spending levels. After all, we will be the ones footing the bill should the debt become too large to ignore. It’s imperative that individuals live within their means.
Millennials, on average, seem to do this pretty well in their day-to-day lives, yet have a baffling trend to throw their support to the government’s own ridiculous spending. The higher spending climbs, the closer to defaulting our nation becomes. And the consequences of defaulting would be financially traumatic for everyone — including young business owners. The cost of doing business would skyrocket and the value of the dollar would plummet. Interest rates across the globe would drastically increase, and a harsh recession could very well follow.
A Pew Research survey found that 6 in 10 Millennials oppose cuts to federally funded benefits as a means of solving the country’s financial problems. Meanwhile, next year’s budget deficit is expected to reach $985 billion. Of that, a whopping 82 percent goes toward entitlements (healthcare, pensions, and welfare) and national defense. This is simply unsustainable.
As it sits, most of the deficit is nondiscretionary funding — meaning it cannot be cut. But even of the portion that can be, lawmakers on both sides refuse to relinquish their claims. The Democrats, especially, stand hard and fast on protecting those costly entitlements millennials support. But it is simply counterintuitive that millennials tend to favor the very programs feeding the debt they’ll have to repay.
Spendthrifts have grown comfortable in public office by promising grand initiatives that will yield benefits to citizens and future generations alike. Yet this rarely works out as neatly as it’s promised to. Government’s ridiculous spending of taxpayer money ignores the most powerful force on this earth: individual choice. Citizens can allocate their own resources far more efficiently than government, simply because they have more stake in the game.
And taxpayer money, in the hands of the government, isn’t being used for any sort of initiative that might help ease the nation’s debt. Instead, it’s handed out to special interest groups. Whenever a local tax levy expires, politicians in charge of divvying out the money are blitzed by these special interest organizations. In turn, as inflation and prices rise, subsidization loses its shock value. It merely becomes a normal aspect of life as we forget that the debt we’ll have to repay is ever-growing.
The latest move we’ve seen on the federal budget front was nothing short of abysmal. This year saw federal spending increase at the hands of Republicans in the omnibus bill. Money once again shifted around as if it were part of a drunken poker game, with the government taking all of the spoils. The bill, signed by President Trump into law in March, appropriated $1.3 trillion — meaning an increase of more than $235 billion to the spending.
We need drastic cuts, and we need them yesterday. Government always tells itself that it can just buy its way out of fiscal turmoil, but, in the end, it’s simply shifting the cost for its poor decisions to the generation it continues to promise the world.
Former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., famously claimed, “Government is just a word for things we do together.” In terms of debt and spending, he’s right. For if the national debt becomes insurmountable, it’s together that we’ll suffer. Spending cuts, from local town halls to Capitol Hill, are necessary. Young people would be wise to remember this since we’re the ones who are going to end up bearing the brunt of this burden.
Brad Johnson (@bradjCincy) is a Young Voices contributor.
