My wife and I are expecting a new baby. Needless to say, we’re excited.
But just the other day we got some bad news: our unborn child is already very deeply in debt.
According to recent estimates, a child born this year will have to pay $100,000 in federal taxes just to pay interest on the $5.5 trillion of national debt. That doesn’t include one penny to defend the country during the baby’s lifetime or any other federal program.
It doesn’t take into account state or local taxes, schools or roads. Nor does that include payroll taxes for Social Security. Those will be grabbing a bigger and bigger bite from future generations especially if politicians keep raiding the money we pay in.
My child is being stuck with a $100,000 tax bill to pay for the excesses of career politicians who’ve been pleasing every special interest under the sun before the baby was even born.
Steve Moore of the Cato Institute in Washington calls this “fiscal child abuse.” He’s right. The politicians in Washington regularly use their supposed concern for children to justify spending more and more on programs that don’t work.
If they really cared about kids they’d stop mortgaging their future. To me, the birth of a baby is like winning the lottery. So even career politicians piling up debts and sending my kid the bill can’t spoil this wonderful event. But what Congress is doing is child abuse and we’ve got to stop it.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.