Bob Meade - Who do you trust?

There’s an old adage that says, “People buy from people they trust.”

That statement is essentially true. You may make a purchase from someone or some company for the first time but, based on the integrity of that transaction, you may or may not ever deal with that company or individual again. Trust! Just think about your buying habits from the grocery store, to your automobile purchases or repairs, to your insurance companies, and even your friendships; “trust” is an integral part of how you make your decisions.

Now, what if you learned that your government has been untrustworthy? That it has not told you the unvarnished truth? That it has led you to act in a way that will severely punish your children and grandchildren?

Take a few moments and think about our federal government’s national “debt”. It now exceeds $21 trillion and people are becoming rightfully concerned. It has become a political issue and people on each side of the political aisle are pointing at the other . . . and we should be pointing at all of them for depriving us of the truth.

So, what is the truth? To start, for years and years the federal government has marketed this thing called the “national debt”, showing us how much debt that has been accumulated as a result of government’s annual spending as compared to its annual revenues. Currently, that debt number is $21 trillion, and it’s growing. Tax revenues for 2019 are estimated to be $3.42 trillion, and federal expenditures are estimated to be $4.41 trillion . . . therefore increasing the national debt to $22 trillion. That’s terrible! We shouldn’t be spending more than we take in. But, would you believe, that number is the shiny thing that we are being told to look at so we won’t ask about the sum of the real national debt that has been accumulated and continues to grow.

The real debt numbers are often hidden in what are called “unfunded liabilities.” These are numbers based on the revenue shortfalls for programs the government has promised to fulfill. For example, the Social Security System has unfunded liabilities of $9.6 trillion, but that is not counted in the national debt number. Medicare has unfunded liabilities of $38.6 trillion, and that is not counted in the national debt. Federal employee pension funds have unfunded liabilities of $3.5 trillion. The House of Representative Veteran’s Affairs Committee anticipates unfunded liabilities of over $1.3 trillion just for the care of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.

These are not all, but are some of the more significant unfunded liabilities in the federal government. Daily Reckoning cited a study by Professor Laurence Rotlikoff of Boston University that estimates the total of the federal government’s unfunded liabilities amounts to over $205 trillion, a staggering number that is almost 10 times greater than what we are told is the “national debt”.

The state and local governments have similar problems, particularly with their unfunded pension liabilities. For example, in 2015, the think tank “State Budget Solutions” found state pension plans were under-funded to the tune of $4.7 trillion. In 2017 a Bloomberg report showed there were 24 states that had an underfunded shortfall of over 30 percent in their pension obligations. In October of 2018, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, issued a report which said that New Hampshire had a total unfunded pension liability of $20.85 billion, or 27 percent of state personal income.

While we don’t know what the full impact of this staggering debt will be on our children and grandchildren, or how it will be addressed by our government, please take a moment and consider just a couple of items the current list of presidential hopefuls is promising:

— Health care for all: Consider that Medicare for 15 percent of the population, senior citizens and the disabled, already has $38.6 trillion in unfunded liabilities and the politicians are suggesting we add the remaining 85 percent of the population into that program. Such an irresponsible move would not only create an even greater financial nightmare, it would literally overwhelm and destroy the best health care system in the world. We would no longer be free to choose our medical care, but would become subject to the whims of bureaucrats.

— Free college education for all: Consider that student debt already exceeds a trillion dollars. Open the gates and let everyone go to college for free and that trillion dollars of debt will look like change for a cup of coffee as cradle to grave education would be in the hands of federal bureaucrats.

MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber was right when he said that when they put together the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) they counted on the people being too dumb to understand it, otherwise it wouldn’t have passed. Today’s slate of presidential hopefuls is banking on him being right again about their promises.

Trust!

(Bob Meade is a Laconia resident. He may be reached at bobmeade13@gmail.com)