Bert's Thoughts

All dollar amounts below are inflation adjusted to 2012 dollars, per federal government “chaining” practices. At a time of full employment (the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 9.6 million unfilled job openings at the end of August and a 3.8 percent unemployment rate for September), and with National Defense consuming a near record low percentage of federal spending, why is the federal government spending 4.7 times what it spent during the Vietnam War and 1.7 times what it spent during the Iraq War? Who is getting all this money? These spending increases are being funded by piling more debt on the shoulders of all future generations, it’s a massive Buy Now Pay Later scheme handed to us by glad handing politicians. From 1966-70 we had over 300,000 troops in Vietnam. During those years federal spending averaged $1,046 billion per year and National Defense consumed 44.3 percent of federal spending. Annual deficits averaged $47 billion. From 2003-08 we had over 100,000 troops in Iraq. D...

 We older folks can still remember the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, the”first oil shock”, and the 1979 “second oil shock” caused by the revolution in Iran. During the late 70’s we lived in rural Iowa, I commuted 30 miles to Des Moines. I remember well my time sitting in lines waiting for enough gas to get me back and forth to work the next few days, fill-ups were rare as the amount we could purchase was often rationed by the station. A 2005 paper on the issue estimated that Americans wasted 150,000 BARRELS of oil a day while sitting in line, idling, waiting for fuel. To protect us from future reductions in oil supplies the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act, led to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The Act authorized a reserve with a capacity of up to one billion barrels of petroleum, as constructed the Preserve had a 700 million barrel capacity. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed the Secretary of Energy to fill the SPR to the full 1 billion barrel authorized capacity, a pr...

  Politicians are once again fighting over how they can “buy” the most votes, while appearing to have the best interests of US citizens as their goal. Federal spending history shows that those in control are either fiscal idiots or only interested in feathering their own nests while in office. The last time we had a “balanced” federal budget was during the years 1998-2001. Federal budget history shows a total 4 year surplus of $559 billion. The primary reason for the “surplus” was because Social Security collected $558 billion more than it paid out during that period. A secondary reason was President Clinton’s Welfare to Work bill, signed in late 1996. Food stamp spending dropped from $22 billion in 1996 to $16 billion in 2001; in 2021 it was $150 billion.   It is interesting to note that in 2001 the federal government spent $28,800 (2023 dollars) per household while in 2023 it spent $47,800 per household. Can anyone conceive of why we now need nearly twice as much federal gov...