The following letter was sent to our three area Congressmen (Barletta, Marino, & Thompson, as well as Senators Toomey and Casey. Feel free to borrow from it in your own admonitions to our representatives in Washington...
Dear Representative,
The members of the Tea Party in your district would like to express our most sincere wishes that you vote "NO" to raising the national debt ceiling. No matter the concessions offered, raising the debt ceiling can only indicate a willingness of the citizens to suffer more government borrowing. We give no such consent under any circumstances.
Thomas Jefferson admonished, "The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." The public credit has already been tapped beyond any reasonable ability to repay within the current generation. This has invariably committed the youth, and even the unborn, of this nation to a liability that they had no hand in creating and were given no possible voice in opposing. This amounts to taxation without representation and is a treacherous malfeasance toward both our founding principles and our posterity.
We are facing a serious and imminent danger to our currency and our future ability to provide even the core, basic government functions as a result of the exponentially growing national debt and unfunded liabilities. For the past few decades, the United States has enjoyed the unique advantages of issuing the reserve currency of the world, including unnaturally low interest rates despite our inflationary practices. But all good things must come to an end, particularly when abused. The Federal Reserve is now actively buying U.S. Treasury notes by expanding the money supply – the last recourse of banana republics!
The U.S. national debt is the biggest subprime adjustable rate loan of all time. The average Treasury debt maturity is just 4.6 years. The current teaser rate of 2.99% cannot and will not last even under normal circumstances, let alone when the Fed is engaging in "quantitative easing". Already, commodity prices are off to the races. Measured in gold, oil, cotton, or wheat, the U.S. Dollar is quickly losing its value.
The last time we had significant inflation, 5-year bonds in 1981 averaged 14.25%. If rates rise to similar levels again -– which is not only possible, but likely -– then between refinancing of current debt and new borrowing to meet ongoing deficits, the annual interest on the national debt could rise to more than $3 trillion inside of five years. That's more than the government receives in total revenues! In other words, the entire budget will go solely to debt service with nothing left over for any agencies, entitlements, or military whatsoever.
But there will likely be a run on our sovereign debt long before it even gets that far, just like in Greece. But unlike with Greece, there is nobody to bail us out. We will either default or we will hyperinflate -– i.e. print money to cover our debts, with devastating results. Neither course is acceptable.
The only path to the future solvency of our nation is through austerity. We simply cannot afford to take on any more debt. Even Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton have acknowledged that the national debt is the greatest threat to our country –- greater than any foreign military, extremist group, or social injustice. We must take no measures off the table when it comes to figuring out how to live within our means. Every agency, program, entitlement, and military endeavor must undergo rigorous cost-benefit analysis to determine which will receive funding and which will be cancelled. If we do not cut a large portion of them now, then we won't be able to fund any of them in the very near future.
It has recently become obvious that there is no political will on either side of the aisle to make significant enough budget cuts to avert dire consequences. Neither Republican nor Democrat proposals reduce the deficit by any meaningful amount.
We believe that a Balanced Budget Amendment is critical to the permanent fiscal health of our government. But even the hope of passing such an amendment does not trump the need to cap our debt at present levels right now. The current House proposal, H.J.RES.2, would not take effect until 2016, even if it passed and became the law of the land, which is by no means assured. As we have seen, 2016 may very well be too late to fix our runaway debt.
It is therefore imperative that you fight to prevent the debt limit from being raised. No consequence from doing so can possibly compare with the catastrophic fiscal collapse which will result from maintaining our present course.
Thank you for being a true representative of the citizens you serve.
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