Letter to the editor: Analyzing why the U.S. is in financial trouble

Dear fellow taxpaying citizens:

Do you understand that the U.S. is in deep financial trouble? As ham-handed as President Donald Trump is, he is doing what he thinks is best for the country. What suggestions or alternative plans do any of you have to solve the future economic train wreck?

Do you know how much trouble the country is in?

• We have dropped to 40th in the world in education

• In 2019 we were 35.7% dependent on government support; in 2022, 41.2%.

• In 2019, Medicaid, 73.9% dependent on government support; 2022, 81%.

• In 2001, food stamps, 6.1% dependent on government support; 2023, 12.6%.

In 1970 the U.S. developed an accounting system that was pay-as-you-go for government. Politicians did not like this. Progressive Democrats in 1974 passed a new way of accounting called base line budgeting (BBL). BBL would take the previous year’s spending budget and automatically increase the spending by up to 7%, without a vote on a budget.

Decades of continuing resolutions were passed; the debt ceiling was raised as a smokescreen hiding the wild spending by the progressive Democrats. The politicians were addicting the citizens of the USA to government hand-outs and economic dependence.

All of those decades of free spending and social program expansions made the Ivy League- educated, entrenched, elderly politicians powerful and indifferent to the needs of the country and its citizens.

This explains how we got into this current tariff mess. You should care and know why. Then hold those responsible accountable for their actions.

Raymond J. Borkoski

Ford City