The Absolute Truth: $222 Trillion U.S. Govt. Debt

The political debates on the "U.S. National Debt Crisis" are again fast approaching while going into the 2014 mid-term elections season with senate and house seats up for grabs. Again the ideological and political gap between the parties remains wide with the partisan bickering and name calling as neither side wishes to be called "the party of NO" when the budget cuts lop off or reduce spending programs - So now what are those politicians doing for those seats? Answers: Same-O & Nada!

Entering into my discussion, I introduce Father Charles S. Casassa SJ, (1910-1989) chancellor emeritus of Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles,Father Charles S. Casassa SJ CA. He had an Italian name, an Irish face, a courtly manner, a highly intelligent and open mind and a reputation far and wide for achievements--in education, human relations, ecumenism and civil rights--his own love of learning inspired students with his passion for education and for the course materials.

My brother enrolled in Father Cassasa's Cosmology class in 1962 where he imparted many philosophical gems into his learned students' lexicon which are still remembered over fifty years later--quite an achievement by any scholarly standards. It was during a discourse about the "absolute truths", sometimes called "universal truths", of the cosmos, the universe, which are infinitely tenable to never change that Father Cassasa imparted wisdom about what is absolute truth--"Black is black, white is white and shit is shit." That empirical statement devoid of human judgement was based solely on unalterable, permanent facts.

Progressive politicians consistently reject our constitutional laws which are the "absolute truths", the "building blocks" of our republic's foundation. By infusing their soupe du jour in opinions, morals, codes or policies into those laws - it is how our Constitution is being eroded by Obama's Presidential Executive Orders or amended by the EPA or other Government Agency Regulators' directives based on Obama's progressive agenda suborning legislative expediency bypassing Congress rather than under written laws created by the Constitutional legislative body under the Congressional branch representing the electorate. The legislative, congressional, executive, and judicial constraints all serve as checks on the bureaucracy. Since Congress can use powerful constraints on the bureaucracy by exercising its budgetary oversight functions, Obama flagrantly avoids them as he sews his seeds of our destruction with government excesses.

The President is ruling without any Congressional balance of power constraints - it is like the 1978 movie "Animal House" on steroids. A sequence in Animal House was about a freshman pledge, Flounder, who let some upperclassmen in the fraternity use his brother’s brand-new Lincoln for a road trip. Naturally, the fraternity brothers trashed the car. As Flounder wept in regret, the suave, smooth-talking senior, Otter, put his arm around Flounder’s shoulder and explained the facts of life to him: “You fucked up [sic]; you trusted us.” --a hard lesson learned. And we've already turned over our keys to Obama too? 

Source Bio: RealClearPolitics, the Chicago-based political news and polling data aggregator's audience is made up of national opinion leaders, high level business executives and DC decision makers.

RealClearPolicy invited Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, an expert on the national debt, to weigh in on the conversation with Republican Senators Cox and Archer. The following is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

RealClearPolicy: In December, 2112 Republican Senators Cox and Archer argue that the U.S.’s underlying debt is much higher than the officially stated debt of $16 trillion.  If you add up the unfunded obligations the government has -- to Social Security, Medicare, federal workers’ pensions, and so on -- They argue that the real debt is about $87 trillion. Can that be right?

Kotlikoff: "That’s wrong! It’s $222 trillion."

"That’s what we economists call "the fiscal gap". I don’t know what those guys are looking at, but we economists do it a certain way. We’re not politicians. We’re just doing it the way our theory says to do it. What you have to do is look at the "present value of all the expenditures now through the end of time" - all projected expenditures, including servicing the official debt. And you subtract all the projected taxes. The present value of the difference is $222 trillion.

So the true size of our fiscal problem is $222 trillion, not $87 trillion. That’s comprehensive and incorporates the official debt. The official debt in the hands of the public is $11 trillion, so the true problem is 20 times bigger than the official debt."

RealClearPolicy: Why is it more useful to think about the fiscal gap than the official debt?

"The official debt is something that has to be repaid, and the government is Liar Liar Pants On Fire Metercommitted to principal and interest payments. But the government has other commitments, like Social Security payments, health care and Medicare payments, Medicaid payments, and defense expenditures. And it also has negative commitments, namely taxes. So you want to put everything on even footing. Most of the liabilities the government has incurred in the postwar period have been kept off the books because of the way we’ve labeled our receipts and payments. The government has gone out of its way to run up a Ponzi scheme and keep evidence of that off the books by using language to make it appear that we have a small debt."

OBAMA - SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Why has NO ONE in Washington talked about THIS?