Spending Our Way to Oblivion

Those hoping for a Christmastime government shutdown to mitigate the damage to our economy in Washington, D.C. were once again disappointed when Congress passed a 4,155 page, $1.7 trillion omnibus appropriations bill that few, if any, Representatives and Senators read before voting on.

Instead, the Republican leadership celebrated this bloated monstrosity because it spends $858 billion on warfare while “only” spending $772.5 billion on welfare. $858 billion is enough to give each of the 332 million Americans populating the United States an additional direct subsidy of $2,584, so let that sink in for a minute.

Meanwhile, in a desperate attempt to get inflation under control, the Federal Reserve has been dramatically increasing interest rates. Those interest rate hikes are what has caused the housing market to crash, but Fed officials insist that such short-term pain is necessary in order to tame inflation.  But ask yourself how this can be accomplished when  our politicians in Washington are busy creating more inflation by borrowing and spending money at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented in our entire history.

After the grossly bloated $1.7 trillion Omnibus spending bill advanced in the Senate by a vote of 70-25, GOP Senator Rand Paul held a press briefing during which he wheeled in the “abomination” on a trolley and demanded to know how anyone would be able to read it before the end of the week.  Paul, along with the only other dissenting Senate Republicans Mike Braun, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, and Rick Scott highlighted how ludicrous the fast tracking of the bill has been.

Unfortunately, this absurd spending bill had broad support on both sides of the aisle, and sadly that only shows how broken Washington has become.

Our system of government has failed time after time, and our politicians continue to spend money on some of the most ridiculous things imaginable.

The Omnibus appropriates a $44.5 billion giveaway to Ukraine. This money is spent in a conflict that does not affect US security, yet one that would likely have not occurred were it not for prior U.S. meddling in the region This brings the total US spending on Ukraine’s military to over $100 billion - approximately 50 percent more than Russia’s entire military budget!

The Omnibus bill also provides $11.3 billion for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a $569.6 million increase.  According to the Democratic leadership, the funding increase is so the FBI can better fight “extremist violence and domestic terrorists.”

Of course, through the release of The Twitter Files, the public recently learned what the FBI considers an appropriate way to fight “extremism,” with the release of emails between Twitter officials and the FBI. These memos show the Bureau was working with Twitter—and almost certainly other social media companies—to suppress certain stories, such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, and points of view, such as valid yet suppressed studies and opinions from universities, medical professionals, and even the CDC regarding masks, lockdowns, and vaccine mandates.

The bureau even used taxpayer funds to reimburse Twitter for the costs of implementing these “requests.” Government officials working with private companies to silence American citizens is a clear violation of the First Amendment, which apparently Congress doesn’t care about anymore.

So what is the takeaway?

This fiscal year 2022 omnibus appropriations bill expands government, reduces liberty, and increases government debt, forcing the Federal Reserve to monetize more debt leading to more price inflation.

Our political elites prioritize militarism abroad and authoritarianism at home over addressing the problems facing the American people like the Federal Reserve’s destructive monetary policy.

This will undoubtedly fuel growing discontent with the political system, as it rightly should.  No matter who we send to Washington, the story remains the same.

As long as our politicians are borrowing and spending trillions of dollars that we do not have, Fed officials won’t be able to win their war against inflation. The Fed can send interest rates into the stratosphere, but inflation will continue to remain high because our politicians insist on showering the nation with giant mountains of cash.

We should all be deeply, deeply offended by what is happening, but most Americans simply do not know enough to care. However, if economic conditions get even worse than they were in 2008 and 2009, the majority of the U.S. population will become extremely angry.

Of course things could have turned out much differently if we had made better decisions during the years leading up to this crisis, but when representatives vote on spending bills that they haven’t even read, you have to ask who actually assembled this mess?

And if the constitutionally designated body responsible for controlling these expenditures isn’t even aware of what they are specifically allocating these funds for, do we really need to continue debating the issue of whether or not a Deep State exists?