Being the willfully ignorant writer of fiction

As willfully ignorant as I can be

In a moment of flippancy, I was online, on Facebook, going back and forth with a friend. We were trading bon-mots, egotistically generated insights, and simply trying to connect with each other. It was thoroughly enjoyable. Thanks, Lenny. Let’s do it again sometime.

I found myself asking an open-ended question, not necessarily targeting a truth nor was I really trying to out-do my friend in cleverness. It was just a thought. I asked, “What would happen if we stopped spending so much, stopped spending altogether, on the military and used what we currently spend to pay down the national debt?”

He said: “Good question.”

It is a good question because it instantly evaporated any hubris enthusiasm in me. This morning I did some digging with the intention of finding out what might really happen. I restricted my interest by setting aside any and all social issues, such as what would this do to us geopolitically. I ignored the notion that there are service members who need to be paid. There are contracts that are currently due for payment, as well. I ignored these practical and necessary considerations. To not do this, would mire my investigation in an endless search for facts, expertise, and general consensus. Besides, it isn’t my job to make sense of all the government reports, transcripts, bills, etc. (My sympathies to all congress members who actually go through all of this, no matter which party they belong to)

However, without any factual basis, this question turns into a silly ‘what if?’ game. So, I dug into the internet, specifically looking up the facts as I could find them on the US Treasury website. I also looked at the President’s proposed budget for this year. I really shouldn’t have done this second thing. That’s where the confusion started so I am going to ignore it.

The facts, as I found them: Current Public Debt owed by the US Government (vis a vis US Treasury) is, as of November 12, 2015, $18,649,024,795,838.78  (That’s pretty accurate!!)

I want to simplify some things for a moment. Let’s make this big number easier to comprehend. The amount of money owed by the US Federal Government, according to the US Treasury, is approximately $18.6 Trillion dollars. Scary but with truth comes wisdom.

I did more digging to find out what the interest was on that sum. The US Treasury provided this too.

As of November 12, 2015 Interest Expense on the Public Debt is: $402,435,356,075.49. They didn’t state it, but I assume this is the annual Interest obligation held by the US Federal Government. Ok. Pretty straightforward. $18.6 trillion owed as principal. $402.4 billion owed annually as interest. That’s just over 2%.

Here’s the other side of the question. How much do we spend on the military every year? Or, to be more precise, how much are we planning on spending this year? The National Defense Budget Authority provided me with some numbers. Currently, the total National Defense Budget (in current dollars) are listed below by year.

Fiscal Year 2013: $610,096,000,000  or approximately  $610 billion

Fiscal Year 2014: $613,619,000,000  or approximately  $614 billion

Fiscal Year 2015: $636,642,000,000  or approximately  $637 billion (Note: a bit of a jump in spending this year. Perhaps, we can scale this back a bit. However, this comment leads me into another discussion, so I will willfully ignore this line of thought.)

Ok. Let’s wrap this up.

There are a couple of other numbers that are equally important. First, revenues from personal income taxes, according to the President’s proposed budget, is approximately $1.5 trillion. Revenues from corporate taxes is approximately $650 billion. Total is approximately $3.2 trillion. That’s a lot of money, and it makes it easier to comprehend the debt owed by comparison.

Conclusion: If we un-funded the US Military our debt would not be reduced by much. We would be left undefended and incapable of exerting any force anywhere. The question I asked earlier was just a thought but the conclusion makes it silly, to say the least. However, it did raise one important idea. Namely, the debt our government, and, by proxy, each one of us owes is easily surmountable. What was paid for by incurring this debt was for the benefit of all so it makes sense that ALL pay it off.

All other things being equal, if we raised the income taxes on the public and on corporations at the same rate we might just be able to pay off the debt. Now, wouldn’t that be nice.

But George, that’s too high. That is simply too much of an increase!

Raising taxes on both entities by 43% would have the following consequences. 43% would equal paying the interest on the current debt and paying down the debt by 5% annually (Don’t believe me? Do the math). What this means to you? If you paid $1,500 in federal income taxes last year, you would be paying $2,144 this year, under this plan. Per month? The increase would only mean approximately $53.70. To put this more precisely, for every $300 in Income Tax you paid, you would be paying an additional $10 (approx.) per month. If this sounds fair, you can expect to pay off the national debt in approximately 18 years without any other changes to the national budget, the military, revenues from taxes, or your favorite government subsidy.

Now, do you understand why we never talk about this???