“A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon, you’re talking about real money.”
Attributed to the late Sen. Everett Dirksen
Everett Dirksen (R.-Ill) was the Senate Minority Leader in the 1960s. He was as famous for his wit as he was for his concern about federal spending and our rising public debt. In 1969, the year he died, the U.S. public debt was $354 billion. In today’s dollars that would be around $2.5 trillion. If only that were the size of today’s debt. Instead it has ballooned to a whopping $22 trillion.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the leading Democrat presidential candidates are proposing programs that will add trillions more: universal child care, free college, universal basic income, reparations, tax credit for renters and let us not forget Bernie Sander’s Medicare for all. The latter is estimated to cost anywhere from $3.24 trillion to $1.38 trillion a year, depending on whose estimate you take. Continue reading “A Trillion Dollars in Perspect”