Federal debt should drive power back to states
There is likely no greater reminder of the need to devolve power away from Washington than our obscene national debt.
Jack Salmon, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center, offers a thorough and sobering evaluation of the crisis.
These numbers jumped out:
…in FY 2025 almost 19 cents in every dollar of tax revenues collected was spent on servicing the debt. This is up from 18 cents in 2024, 15 cents in 2023, and 10 cents in 2022. In other words, we’re currently spending almost twice the share of tax revenue on servicing the public debt than we were spending less than three years ago.
Despite record tax receipts, Washington spent over $7 trillion this year, proof that the problem isn’t a lack of revenue but a lack of discipline.
Adam Michael of Cato Institute wrote a solid piece at the Civitas Institute on the importance of spending cuts. “Without credible plans to restrain spending, America’s fiscal future points toward a European-style taxation model: less growth, fewer jobs, and higher burdens on the middle class,” writes Michael.
Of course, all this means fewer dollars go to real priorities and policies. The cataclysmic failure of Congress to put the interests of the nation above their own political ambitions is not surprising since self-preservation is the highest virtue in Washington. I find it even more depressing that federal lawmakers completely ignore all the market signals revealing our debt is a huge problem. Why are so many people speculating in assets like gold and cryptocurrency, just to offer one example?
This kind of mammoth debt means a more meager existence for Americans going forward for a host of reasons as Michael mentioned in his write-up.
In short, federal debt is the symptom and Centralized power is the disease. It’s time to return greater responsibility on spending and restraint to where they belong: closer to the people. The out-of-control spending continually makes the best case why Congress needs less power.
—Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat