WARREN D. GRANT: Federal spending is out of control

When will the shoe drop? The United States is by most accounting standards broke or virtually insolvent. At the end of FY 2018, it is estimated federal government debt will be around $21.09 trillion. That does not include agency debt issued by federal agencies and government-sponsored enterprises.

It is estimated that at the end of FY 2018 federal income will be $6.66 trillion and spending $7.17 trillion. No politician wants to claim the sky is falling. They don’t want the public to panic and it would mean they have done a lousy job, and they have. From the numbers, you can easily see that the national debt is increasing.

A lot of the numbers that people research are a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product, which makes them look a lot different. GDP is the best way to measure a country’s economy, the total value of everything produced by all the people and companies in the country. It doesn’t matter if they are citizens or foreign-owned companies.

So, what is the shoe? Simply the government admitting there is a massive problem. Many on Congress are screaming Social Security is a big drain. They call it “entitlement.” True, I’m entitled to what I gave the government to take care of for me and now I want it back. They weren’t supposed to confiscate it to try to balance the budget and put in an IOU.

Government spending for FY 2017 was estimated to be $1.145 trillion with $702 billion for Medicaid and $443 billion for welfare, while only $945 billion is for Social Security. On a percentage basis, the budget has only three items larger than welfare — health care, pensions and defense spending. Much of this information came from usgovernmentspending.com.

Congress in general, both Left and Right, are responsible. While I was better off under President Reagan because Carter pushed interest rates to 20 percent, he increased the debt over 50 percent of GDP and the total debt to 70 percent to win the Cold War. We’re in trouble and calling names or pointing fingers isn’t the answer. Stop spending money you don’t have is.

WARREN GRANT

Albany