While Republican U.S. Senator Richard Shelby discussed many dangers to the country, such as open borders, terrorism, rogue countries like North Korea and threats to Second Amendment rights, he told members of the Dale County Republicans Thursday, Jan. 7, the nation’s mounting debt “is the number one problem” in America today.
According to the dollar comparison calculator at data.bls.gov, it takes $23.50 to purchase what $1 paid for a hundred years ago. In 2015, a $1.22 would purchase what $1 dollar did 10 years before in 2005.
As for the national debt, as of this writing, America’s national debt was nearing 19 trillion dollars and increasing every second. On nationaldebtclocks.org, it states the debt carried by each of America’s 325,127,634 known citizens is a whopping $58,362 and that figure continues to grow by the second.
“You could wrap $1 bills around the Earth 73,331 times with the debt amount…If you lay $1 bills on top of each other they would make a pile…1,278,356 miles high…That's equivalent to 5.35 trips to the Moon,” the site states. The moon is 238,900 miles from earth.
Shelby said even though the debt continues to climb, the government continues to borrow more money rather than cut programs or make other changes and there will come “a day of reckoning” for the government and its citizens, just as it does for individual citizens and businesses who borrow more than they can afford. He said the Federal Reserve keeps “printing off” the debt—quantitative easing—and eventually another currency may come into play. “I worry about how we’re going to pay the debt off, not print it off,” Shelby said.
According to Forbes.com, “…QE has been effective in sailing the U.S. through the recession. However, it could very well have consequences for the stability of the U.S. financial system and the global financial system, since it is, after all, an artificial stimulus. Only time will tell if QE in the U.S. has been instrumental in pulling the U.S. economy out of a crisis, or whether it has just set the stage for the next crisis."
The Forbes site goes on to say, “The U.S. dollar is the single most powerful herd dynamic in global financial markets today. And financial markets are unlikely to let a good bubble go to waste…Between now and the return of inflation in 2016, investors are likely to continue to pour into dollar assets—from securities to real estate. Meet the new bubble: the American greenback.”
“People don’t like to talk about it (the debt, the dollar),” said Shelby, but that is “our number one problem.”
Shelby, first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, is now 81-years-old but said he still has the resolve and tenacity to continue fighting for Alabama and for what’s right for the country. He said the 2016 election is very important for many reasons, one of which is turning America back around from the road to socialism that it is on now on. “I believe I can make a difference. I’ve got experience. I’ve got the resolve,” he said.
“We have no leadership in Washington,” said Shelby, adding that President Barack Obama acts like a czar or king. “I think it’s an abuse of power like I’ve never seen. I’ve never seen it like that up there,” referring to the president’s use of executive powers to change things without Congressional approval.
“A lot of people are coming into the country we don’t know anything about…There needs to be a moratorium on Syrians coming in…Our immigration policies are broken…Terrorists are everywhere…Americans don’t feel safe,” he said, adding that citizens are getting to a point that they feel fear of the government and its agencies as opposed to trusting the government to protect America and its citizens.
“Our system is broken. Our challenges are many. Are we the strongest nation? I hope so…Our nation is the only one in the world that doesn’t protect its borders…We have to assert our leadership as a country or we will lose it forever…”
Shelby also talked about the importance of a flat rate income tax, which he has always been a staunch supporter of. “A flat tax with no deductions would be fair,” he said, explaining that the nation survived over 100 years without an income tax and while he doesn’t believe the country could be that way again, a flat tax would be more fair than having 5 percent of citizens paying 75 percent of income taxes and 50 percent of U.S. citizens paying zero percent. Shelby said overhauling the Internal Revenue Service is of utmost importance.
Shelby warned of nations like N. Korea and Iran and the nuclear power that they and other nations have and said “Our leadership (the president) and respect in the world is diminishing…This is a pivotal (election) year for America.
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