We’re not residing the American dream.

We’re residing a monetary nightmare.

The U.S. authorities is funding its existence with a bank card.

The federal government—and that features the present administration—is spending cash it doesn’t have on packages it could possibly’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are those being compelled to foot the invoice for the federal government’s fiscal madness.

In line with the quantity crunchers with the Committee for a Accountable Federal Funds, the federal government is borrowing roughly $6 billion a day.

Because the Editorial Board for the Washington Put up warns:

“The nation has reached a hazardous second the place what it owes, as a proportion of the full measurement of the economic system, is the best since World Conflict II. If nothing adjustments, the US will quickly be in an uncharted state of affairs that weakens its nationwide safety, imperils its capability to speculate sooner or later, unfairly burdens generations to come back, and would require cuts to vital packages equivalent to Social Safety and Medicare. It isn’t a future anybody desires.”

Let’s discuss numbers, we could?

The nationwide debt (the quantity the federal authorities has borrowed over time and should pay again) is $31 trillion and can develop one other $19 trillion by 2033. That interprets to roughly $246,000 per taxpayer or $94,000 for each single particular person within the nation.

The majority of that debt has been amassed over the previous twenty years, thanks largely to the fiscal shenanigans of 4 presidents, 10 periods of Congress and two wars.

It’s estimated that the quantity this nation owes is now 130% better than its gross home product (all of the services and products produced in a single yr by labor and property provided by the residents).

In different phrases, the federal government is spending greater than it brings in.

The U.S. ranks because the twelfth most indebted nation on this planet, with a lot of that debt owed to the Federal Reserve, massive funding funds and international governments, specifically, Japan and China.

Curiosity funds on the nationwide debt are estimated to prime $395 billion this yr, which is considerably greater than the federal government spends on veterans’ advantages and companies, and in keeping with Pew Analysis Heart, greater than it would spend on elementary and secondary training, catastrophe aid, agriculture, science and house packages, international help, and pure sources and environmental safety mixed.

In line with the Committee for a Affordable Federal Funds, the curiosity we’ve paid on this borrowed cash is “practically twice what the federal authorities will spend on transportation infrastructure, over 4 instances as a lot as it would spend on Okay-12 training, nearly 4 instances what it would spend on housing, and over eight instances what it would spend on science, house, and expertise.”

In ten years, these curiosity funds will exceed our total navy price range.

That is monetary tyranny.

We’ve been offered a invoice of products by politicians promising to pay down the nationwide debt, jumpstart the economic system, rebuild our infrastructure, safe our borders, guarantee our safety, and make us all wholesome, rich and comfortable.

None of that has come to cross, and but we’re nonetheless being loaded down with debt not of our personal making whereas the federal government stays unrepentant, unfazed and undeterred in its wanton spending.

Certainly, the nationwide deficit (the distinction between what the federal government spends and the income it takes in) stays at greater than $1.5 trillion.

If Individuals managed their private funds the best way the federal government mismanages the nation’s funds, we’d all be in debtors’ jail by now.

Regardless of the federal government propaganda being peddled by the politicians and information media, nevertheless, the federal government isn’t spending our tax {dollars} to make our lives higher.

We’re being robbed blind so the governmental elite can get richer.

Within the eyes of the federal government, “we the individuals, the voters, the customers, and the taxpayers” are little greater than pocketbooks ready to be picked.

“We the individuals” have turn out to be the brand new, everlasting underclass in America.

Take into account: The federal government can seize your private home and your automotive (which you’ve purchased and paid for) over nonpayment of taxes. Authorities brokers can freeze and seize your financial institution accounts and different valuables in the event that they merely “suspect” wrongdoing. And the IRS insists on getting the primary reduce of your wage to pay for presidency packages over which you haven’t any say.

We’ve no actual say in how the federal government runs, or how our taxpayer funds are used, however we’re being compelled to pay by way of the nostril, anyhow.

We’ve no actual say, however that doesn’t stop the federal government from fleecing us at each flip and forcing us to pay for limitless wars that do extra to fund the navy industrial complicated than defend us, pork barrel tasks that produce little to nothing, and a police state that serves solely to imprison us inside its partitions.

When you have no alternative, no voice, and no actual choices with regards to the federal government’s claims in your property and your cash, you’re not free.

It wasn’t at all times this manner, in fact.

Early Individuals went to warfare over the inalienable rights described by thinker John Locke because the pure rights of life, liberty and property.

It didn’t take lengthy, nevertheless—100 years, the truth is—earlier than the American authorities was laying declare to the citizenry’s property by levying taxes to pay for the Civil Conflict. Because the New York Instances experiences, “Widespread resistance led to its repeal in 1872.”

Decided to say a number of the citizenry’s wealth for its personal makes use of, the federal government reinstituted the revenue tax in 1894. Charles Pollock challenged the tax as unconstitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court docket dominated in his favor. Pollock’s victory was comparatively short-lived. Members of Congress—united of their willpower to tax the American individuals’s revenue—labored collectively to undertake a constitutional modification to overrule the Pollock choice.

On the eve of World Conflict I, in 1913, Congress instituted a everlasting revenue tax by means of the 16^th Modification to the Structure and the Income Act of 1913. Below the Income Act, people with revenue exceeding $3,000 might be taxed beginning at 1% as much as 7% for incomes exceeding $500,000.

It’s all gone downhill from there.

Unsurprisingly, the federal government has used its tax powers to advance its personal imperialistic agendas and the courts have repeatedly upheld the federal government’s energy to penalize or jail those that refused to pay their taxes.

Whereas we’re struggling to get by, and making robust choices about spend what little cash really makes it into our pockets after the federal, state and native governments take their share (this doesn’t embody the stealth taxes imposed by way of tolls, fines and different fiscal penalties), the federal government continues to do no matter it likes—levy taxes, rack up debt, spend outrageously and irresponsibly—with little thought for the plight of its residents.

To prime all of it off, all of these wars the U.S. is so desirous to struggle overseas are being waged with borrowed funds. As The Atlantic experiences, “U.S. leaders are basically bankrolling the wars with debt, within the type of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and native governments, and by international locations like China and Japan.”

In fact, we’re those who need to repay that borrowed debt.

For example, American taxpayers have been compelled to shell out greater than $5.6 trillion since 9/11 for the navy industrial complicated’s expensive, limitless so-called “warfare on terrorism.” That interprets to roughly $23,000 per taxpayer to wage wars overseas, occupy international international locations, present monetary help to international allies, and fill the pockets of protection contractors and grease the palms of corrupt international dignitaries.

Thoughts you, that’s solely a portion of what the Pentagon spends on America’s navy empire.

America additionally spends extra on international help than another nation, with practically $300 billion disbursed over a five-year interval. Greater than 150 international locations all over the world obtain U.S. taxpayer-funded help, with many of the funds going to the Center East, Africa and Asia. That price ticket retains rising, too.

As Forbes experiences, “U.S. international help dwarfs the federal funds spent by 48 out of fifty state governments yearly. Solely the state governments of California and New York spent extra federal funds than what the U.S. despatched overseas every year to international international locations.”

Most lately, the U.S. has allotted practically $115 billion in emergency navy and humanitarian help for Ukraine because the begin of the Russia invasion.

As Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in a 1953 speech, that is how the navy industrial complicated continues to get richer, whereas the American taxpayer is compelled to pay for packages that do little to reinforce our lives, guarantee our happiness and well-being, or safe our freedoms.

That is no lifestyle.

But it’s not simply the federal government’s limitless wars which are bleeding us dry.

We’re additionally being compelled to shell out cash for surveillance methods to trace our actions, cash to additional militarize our already militarized police, cash to permit the federal government to raid our houses and financial institution accounts, cash to fund colleges the place our children be taught nothing about freedom and every part about comply, and on and on.

There was a time in our historical past when our forebears stated “sufficient is sufficient” and stopped paying their taxes to what they thought-about an illegitimate authorities. They stood their floor and refused to assist a system that was slowly choking out any makes an attempt at self-governance, and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes in opposition to the individuals. Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that might comply with.

Sadly, within the 200-plus years since we established our personal authorities, we’ve let bankers, turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to such an extent that we’re again the place we began.

As soon as once more, we’ve bought a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.

As soon as once more, we’ve bought a judicial system insisting we’ve no rights beneath a authorities which calls for that the individuals march in lockstep with its dictates.

And as soon as once more, we’ve bought to resolve whether or not we’ll hold marching or break stride and make a flip towards freedom.

However what if we didn’t simply pull out our pocketbooks and pony as much as the federal authorities’s outrageous calls for for extra money?

What if we didn’t simply dutifully line as much as drop our hard-earned {dollars} into the gathering bucket, no questions requested about how it is going to be spent?

What if, as a substitute of quietly sending in our tax checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we did a bit calculating of our personal and began deducting from our taxes these packages that we refuse to assist?

As I clarify in my e-book Battlefield America: The Conflict on the American Individuals and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we don’t have the fitting to resolve what occurs to our hard-earned money, then we don’t have any rights in any respect.

WC: 1816