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The U.S. incurs massive annual Federal budget deficits and has accumulated an almost insurmountable National Debt, which now exceeds $92,000 for each man, woman, and child.
This debt accumulated exponentially since WWII-- and coincided with the explosive growth of domestic Entitlement programs.
The U.S. has yet to face the fiscal consequences of this profligacy, but it will likely be very unpleasant.
How did we get into this situation?
Since 1948, government spending has grown from 15% to 21% of the economic pie, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Entitlement spending has grown at a 33% faster rate than the economic pie itself.
Entitlements include Social Security, Medicare A, B, and D, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Earned Income Tax Credits, and over 100 other large federal government charity programs.
Since 1948, entitlements grew from 4% of the economic pie to over 16%.
National defense, interest on public debt, and other federal spending (think highways, bridges, tunnels, etc.) have been stable percentages.
This analysis reveals that entitlement spending growth accounts for the entire increase in national debt incurred since 1948.
Congress paid the money to us (which we spent) but borrowed the money to pay for it and added it to the national debt.
This debt will, in due time, become the obligation of our children and grandchildren. This is our generation's "gift" to future generations.
They will be obliged to pay it back along with all the private debt they incur. We have truly spent our children's inheritance.
How did we get here? The story begins with Revolutionary War pensions, which set the template for all future entitlements.
First established for the benefit of Continental Army and Navy veterans disabled in the line of duty or their widows, they were then extended to state militias, then to non-wartime disabilities and then to all Revolutionary war veterans in 1830.
Civil War pensions followed the same pattern on a much grander scale.
The Grand Army of the Republic, which lobbied for Civil War pensions, became the first national lobbying group.
This progression (encouraged by respective lobbying groups) of first granting benefits to a very specific group; then to other groups considered no less worthy, then broadening eligibility, and granting inflation offsetting raises; became the legislative template -- and the road to re-election for Congress.
The entitlement challenge will likely overwhelm us due to two behavioral tendencies.
First, we act in our own self-interest and resist cutting benefits.
Second, the uncommon generosity of the American people helping the less fortunate encourages increased spending.
Most likely, a national crisis, triggered by the national debt's economic consequences, will be needed to galvanize a movement to address it.
We should have seen this coming.
In the early 1800s, Frederic Bastiat noted, "Government is the illusion that everyone can live at everyone else's expense," and Alexis de Tocqueville observed that "The American Experiment will succeed until politicians learn to bribe the people with their own money."
Sadly, both have come to pass.
Christopher Gable, a periodic contributor to the Mirror's Opinion page, resides in Altoona. His source for this commentary is "The High Cost of Good Intentions, A history of U.S. Federal Entitlement Programs," by John Cogan, 2017.