A few days ago, analyst Marko Csokasi summarized the debt situation on Governing.com
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, total state and local government debt was $3.17 trillion in 2019 or about $9,700 per person. State governments use debt to finance education, infrastructure and to cover budget gaps, among other things. State and local government debt can fluctuate due to spending habits or changes in income from taxes and other sources, such as during recessions…
He was talking here about state and local government debt, which is slightly different from federal debt. The federal debt has been pretty public ever since New York real estate developer Seymour Durst erected the National Debt Clock in New York City, to remind us of what our children and grandchildren will have to deal with someday.
Probably by passing it on to their children and grandchildren.
This photo, above, is slightly outdated. The current federal debt is closer to $28 trillion. About $225,000 per family.
This may strike some of Daily Post readers as worrisome. Luckily, my ex-wife Darlene and I never had children, and I now live alone with my cat Roscoe, which is a platonic relationship. So I will not be passing my share of America’s government debt on to my children and grandchildren, because I don’t have any.
Not that I am blowing my own horn; it’s just how things have turned out. Just like the federal debt being $28 trillion, and the state and local government debt being $3.17 trillion. It’s just how things have turned out.
This also means I don’t have a “family”… so, either I owe $225,000 all on my own, or I don’t owe anything. I prefer the latter choice, with the understanding that I’m not claiming my cat Roscoe as a “family member”. More like a roommate.
In his Governing.com article, Mr. Csokasi wrote:
Leading up to the Great Recession that began at the end of 2007, total state and local government debt increased sharply. It has been falling since 2010 but increased between 2019 and 2020. In the wake of the pandemic, the coming years will likely see a continuation of this trend.
States with rising debt may raise taxes or cut spending to help bring their budgets under control.
I had to laugh when I read that last part, where states would “cut spending to help bring their budgets under control.” I’m sure Mr. Csokasi is a fine person, and probably has a degree in economics, but maybe he doesn’t understand how government works?
We can imagine an individual person — like, take me, for example — bringing their budgets under control. In my case, that happened rather suddenly when the divorced was finalized and more than half of my household income instantly vaporized. (The part that Darlene had been contributing.)
But a government doesn’t behave like an individual person. More like a horde of lemmings.
If only our state and federal governments were married, and decided to get divorced. Then maybe their budgets would finally be brought under control. (Involuntarily.)
Speaking of lemmings, contrary to what many people believe, lemmings do not commit mass suicide when their populations grow too large. They’re actually trying to swim across this or that large body of water, to find a place where the grass is greener and the females are more attractive. (Ha, ha. I made up that last part.)
Many of them fail to make the crossing. Or so I hear.
Our governments behave in a very similar fashion. When they find themselves deeply in debt, they rush around borrowing even more money to pay off the old loans. Which, to some of us, might seem like attempted suicide, but it’s actually natural, inborn behavior.
Looking for that homeland, where the grass — and money — is greener.