Plain Truth 1978 (Prelim No 04) Apr - Herbert W. Armstrong

W
e've come a long way
since the early days of the
Republic , when the federal
budget amounted to a few " paltry"
tens of millions of dollars. Ittook a full
173 years-from the founding of the
United States in 1789 until 1962-for
America 's national budget to hit the
staggering $100 billion mark. It took
only nine more years, until 1971 , to
reach $200 billion. Four years later
we surpassed $300 billion, and two
years after that, $400 billion . Now,
President Carter has proposed a
$500 billion budget for fiscal 1979 ,
which begins October 1, 1978-an
increase of $38 billion from the previous
year.
It's hard for the average person
to grasp just how much a half-trillion
is. Here's one way: If you put
that amount in a line of dollar bills
laid end to end, it would reach to
the moon and back 250 times!
Stacked up, 500 billion silver dollars
would reach as high as
2,830 ,500 Empire State Buildings .
Looking at it another way: If you
had started at the birth of Christ to
spend $700,000 a day, 365 days a
year, you would just now, in 1978,
finally be getting rid of $500 billion.
Now we are going to be spending
that much in a single year! And by
fiscal year 1986-just eight years
away-we will probably be spending
double that amount: a full trillion
dollars! The prospect is mindboggling!
38
On the Road to Ruin?
Moreover, the government expects
to take in by taxation only
$440 billion (if one can use " only"
to describe such a sum), assuming
President Carter's proposed $25
billion tax cut to stimulate the economy
is enacted this fall. This would
leave a budget deficit of slightly
over $60 billion to be covered by increased
g ove r n me nt bo rrowing-and
that on top of a roughly
equal red-ink total for fiscal 1978.
We will thus be racking up the biggest
two-year deficit in the history
of the nation .
This gives us yet another way of
putting the new budget into perspective
. In the coming fiscal year,
the federal deficit alone-$60 billion-will
be nearly 12 times greater
than the entire federal budget during
Herbert Hoover's last year as
president! In that year, the federal
budget totaled less than $5 billion ,
a mere one-hundredth of today 's
figure.
Continued defic it spending has
resulted in a steadily growing national
debt now standing at some
three-quarters of a trillion
dollars-almost $3300 for every
man, woman, and child in the
nation. Moreover, the interest
which must be paid on this debtjust
as private individuals have to
pay interest on loans from banksamounts
to over $50 billion annually.
Thus, the interest burden on
our national debt will constitute a
full ten percent of the 1979 fiscal
budqetl
What are the reasons for the
soaring growth in government
spending? Why is it that Washington-like
many individual Americans-just
can 't seem to hold down
expenditures and bring its spending
into line with its income?
Inflation, of course , is partly responsible
for the record leaps in
federal outlays in recent years. But
then again, inflation is largely
caused by the borrowing and
money supply incr eases necessitated
by govern ment overspending.
It's a vicious circle from
which Washington just can 't seem
to break loose. It is part of the famous
"inflationary spiral. "
But inflation is by no means the
only culprit, as we can see by measuring
federal spending as a percentage
of the gross na tional
product (GNP), the dollar value of
the country's total output of goods
and services. Going back again to
the presidency of Herbert Hoover,
the federal government was taking
only 2.5 percent of the GNP when
he assumed office in 1929. Today,
Washington 's share of the GNP is a
walloping 22 percent!
Aside from inflation, the single
most significant factor in the soaring
government budqet is the
alarming jump in recent years in
outlays for social services-health,
educatio n, welfare, and various
The PLAIN TRUTH April 1978