Pity the imperialists. What do they do? They must realize that the longer they continue occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, the more they weaken the Empire. Hey, they don’t call Afghanistan the “graveyard of empires” for nothing.
America’s imperialists are discovering what imperialists throughout history have discovered: empires are costly. This one is no exception. Military spending on Afghanistan and Iraq and the rest of the Empire all over the world continues to soar out of control.
Combined warfare-state and welfare-state spending is producing a budget deficit of 1.4 trillion dollars. That’s the difference between what the federal government brings in with taxes and how much it’s spending.
And that’s just for one year!
The debt owed by the federal government now totals $11 trillion. That’s almost $39,000 per citizen. What would you do if you had to pay off your $39,000 share of the debt this year?
Social Security is busted — there never was a fund and never will be one. Same for Medicare and Medicaid. No fund there either. Hey, don’t worry — we can just keep borrowing to make all these increasing welfare payments, thereby adding even more debt to the national debt.
Maybe — if we’re lucky — by the time it all has to be paid off we’ll be dead and it’ll be the young people’s problem.
Or better yet, why not just double or triple the income taxes on young people right now to keep the welfare largess flowing? The young people can easily handle it.
Hey, have you heard about the FDIC? That’s the agency charged with bailing out depositors of failed banks. It’s broke too. So it is forcing banks to bail out the bailer by requiring them to come up with an advance payment of “insurance premiums.”
The FDIC considered going to the Treasury to get bailed out but finally decided not to impose that bailout cost directly on the taxpayers. Do you ever wonder what would happen if there is an industry-wide banking collapse? I suppose they’ll go out and tax everyone to pay everyone off.
Oh, and let’s not forget that great big expensive socialist health-care plan that President Obama wants to enact. Hey, the Empire is rich. It can afford anything.
Meanwhile, not surprisingly, the value of the dollar is crumbling and the price of gold is soaring. There are rumbles about foreign countries’ abandoning the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. U.S. Empire officials remain scared to death that the communist regime in China, the Empire’s biggest foreign creditor, might start dumping its supply of U.S. debt instruments, potentially sending the dollar into a death spiral.
While the Empire is cracking from within, the imperialists steadfastly maintain that the 8-year and 7-year occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq must continue. Hey, we’ve got to keep killing the terrorists who still haven’t been killed after all those years of occupation, including those new terrorists that the occupations incessantly produce.
As every imperialist tells us, if the Empire were to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Empire would be perceived as weak. We can’t have that, even if staying there continues to weaken the empire! Perceptions are important.
Anyway, what about all those contractors in the military-industrial complex who have become dependent on their military largess? Aren’t they as entitled to their welfare as domestic welfare recipients are?
Pity the imperialists. They’re damned if they do, and they’re damned if they don’t. Pity the American people even more — they’re the ones who will ultimately pay the price of all this imperial folly.