A message from PEF Retirees President Steve Muscarella
National debt sickening, dangerous

In a recent Associated Press (AP) article titled “Debt may make some people sick,” the writer cites an AP-AOL health poll that found, “When people are dealing with mountains of debt, they are much more likely to report health problems.”

Our national debt is more than $9.4 trillion and rising $1.56 billion every day.
When our country spends more money than it takes in as revenue (taxes, fees, etc.) we create a deficit. This deficit as it accumulates is the national debt – a debt we all share, in addition to our personal debts.

How does it affect us? Our debt devalues our money and makes it harder to pay for the things we need. Our national debt is a weight upon retirees, workers and the poor – all of us.

The 2009 federal budget (spending) is projected to be $3.1 trillion. Our federal income is projected at $2.7 trillion, leaving a shortfall of $400 billion. This will be added to the national debt.

Nearly $1 in every $10 of the 2009 federal budget is to pay interest on the national debt. That’s our money, in the form of taxes, paying the interest on our debt.

Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, stated: “I place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”

It appears no one in Washington has heeded that advice lately. They have loaded us with perpetual debt.

Think of the deep fiscal hole in which we are leaving our children.

President Bill Clinton’s federal budgets actually under spent our revenues. He created surpluses that were paying down our debt so fast it could have been eliminated by 2013.

But in the past seven years, so called “fiscal conservatives” have added almost $4 trillion to the debt.
I agree with Thomas Jefferson, the national debt is the greatest danger to our republic. Our greatest dangers are not from without, but from within our country.

The lessons of great men are lost unless they drive us forward in a concerted effort to improve our country. Remember this as you cast your vote in November.