You have one in your backyard or in your basement, Don’t you? You know, the place that you go whenever you want or need anything. You just go to the tree and pick off a few $10’s (now $50’s with Bidenomics) and go to the store or restaurant. This way you can have everything you need with no real hard effort or discomfort. (Many little children think that is an ATM.)

For those of you that live in the real world, you try to explain to your child that money does not grow on trees, but the money coming out of that machine is money that you already put in there. You have to earn it by selling your time and effort to do something productive for others, who then pay you. After a few years most children begin to understand the concept of trading your work for something they can spend or eat or wear.

This sounds pretty basic until you throw the government in. Most politicians are promising to trade some of the money from others for your vote. Whether they pay for your healthcare or your food or your Obama phone they are spending money to provide you goods and services. It certainly feels like being that 3 year old again. You just ask Mom or Dad and they provide cookies or toys. It all seems easy, seamless and has no other ramifications.

Where is the biggest money tree in the world? If you guessed Washington DC, you are correct. I was going to say “you win,” but the point of this editorial is that you don’t win. If you are the people putting the money into the government you have lost control over what your money is spent on, how much and when. A pile of money sitting anywhere unguarded is in big danger. Ask Joe Biden (or one of the people helping him) they had banked about one trillion dollars in the 2020 Covid relief bill to spend on the 2024 election. Last year they went back to start spreading the money around and found out that there was only $600 billion left in that account. It was not those “wascally wepubicans” that nickel and dimed their campaign money away. It was their own staffs and friends in power.

So what does this have to do with the current incredible state of America today. The promise of all politicians is that they will bring money, goods or services back to their voters only if you keep them in power. The problem is the voters just take the promise as gospel and historically have voted for the person that gave them the best deal. That may sound reasonable until you realize that the money they are picking from the tree is coming out of your pocket. Even an honest politician ends up giving taxpayers about 80% of the money promised. Depending on who you talk to, the overhead for the government generally is between 23% and 40%. In other words, that new bridge they promised one million to, really will only pay out $600 to $800,000 in real money. And that is before all the government permits and inspections. This is one way that the government employees and stay in power, they get their cut off the top.

But wait there is more! You have been so gracious at keeping these big promisers in power they could not even stop at raising your taxes. They took out credit cards in your name to finance the spending to keep them in power. If you are the one getting the short term gain from their credit card spending it is “Free Stuff.” If you will be the one paying the credit card bill it is “unfair and should be illegal.”

So how can we break our addiction to spending “funny money.” The entire premise of America has been we are a land of plenty and anything is possible in America. That is mostly true, but in the fine print come the conditions like: working hard, being creative, taking chances in business and getting along with other people. That’s where many people don’t like the system. All that free stuff comes with rules.

So we got the “free” stuff and let somebody else pay the bill, right? The problem is that “somebody else” is looking more and more like us. Some seniors may be least affected, but one day all the credit card debt is coming due and the only source of income the government has is your wallet. Especially if you are 45 years old or younger. You are going to get the bill. It will not come from Visa, it will come to you as higher taxes and much lower value dollars no matter how much you are getting paid. This is happening in Argentina again. The Argentina money tree has died at least 4 times and now they have given up printing their own money because no one trusts it. Their new president, Javier Milieu has called to use American currency because it is not available for Argentina’s politicians to devalue with more give aways.  

While I wish it was so, there is no short term happy ending to this story. It appears that the US will suffer the same fate as Argentina eventually as our politicians keep running the credit card bill up and up. We dodged a bullet last year as China and a few other countries tried to create an international currency that would replace the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. That attempt failed, but there will be another in the near future and you and me could be facing gigantic inflation like the price doubling in Argentina.

How could you cope with that? What if you are on a fixed income? Do you think all those politicians and government workers are going to stay at the same wage they get now when each dollar only buys 50 cents worth of stuff? There will be a massive rebellion and there is no predicting how it will end. Just like people today getting their debts cleaned up and their credit rating restored, it will take everyone skipping the “free” stuff and paying more to get less in the grocery cart, the heat and every other expenditure. The American people have to wake up and change the entitlement mind set to reduce our US credit debt or suffer all at once.