Unsustainable in America
The word sustainable is defined as “a practice that sustains a given condition, such as economic growth, without destroying or depleting natural resources, etc.” Unsustainable, of course, is just the opposite. For a number of otherwise quite controllable reasons, such as astute, sensible management, the current administration is however leading us, make that, rapidly forcing us, toward a lack of genuine economic growth, while depleting what may well be our most important resource, which is the ever-so-fragile current status of our national debt, representing the very continued solvency of our nation. Within this post, we’ll look at some of the troubling ways the current administration is pushing us closer and closer to the edge of the continued sustainable operation of an here-to-for free, safe, and sovereign nation, one which the vast majority of our citizenry have grown to assume would remain solvent and robust for generations to come.
The first unsustainability factor we face as a nation, then, is the continued federal spending, long a problem, but exacerbated by the politically self-centered, patently excessive spending of the ultra-liberal administration now in office. Just passed by Democrats taking charge in the House, mega-billions to support foreign conflicts in Ukraine, Israel, and the potential for such in Taiwan. The Senate will pass it and it will be signed into law by Mr. Biden for the glory and accolades that will accrue to him by the grateful nations receiving a boat load of our funds. Prior to this, it was the Inflation Reduction Act, which produced nothing of the sort, as once again, billions of our citizens’ hard earned tax dollars, along with, no doubt, continuing internationally borrowed funds, were earmarked for more blue-sky, so called ‘climate change’ initiatives largely bundled under the fanciful ‘green energy’ banner. As but one example of the seriousness of our national debt issue, it has been reported that the annual interest expense of our debt borrowing this year will actually be larger than the entire federal budget for our Department of Defense! Folks, that assumption alone is more than enough for very serious debt concern! Our debt level is now unsustainable and becomes ever more so every time Mr. Biden or Congress takes another huge handful from our continuingly depleted federal vault.
Much or most of this domestic and international cash-splash has done nothing to slow or stop the mounting economic inflation that plagues American families, a fair number of whom are said to be now living paycheck-to-paycheck, or in perhaps too many cases, having to skimp on meals given the continuing high cost of groceries, or are perhaps even, in some cases, having to rely more on food banks to supplement. And regarding housing, it’s gotten to the point where, reported a recent Qualtrics poll, almost 38% of U.S. citizen renters are convinced that they’ll never be able to actually afford a home. All the while, millions of illegal migrants are being treated to free meals, shelter, education, and health care, a fiscal topic for later discussion. With all the constant D.C. talk of combating inflation, the cost of food, fuel, electricity, rents, and mortgage rates, etc. continue upward regardless of the figurative handwringing going on among the nation’s otherwise absorbed elite, both within our nation’s capital and elsewhere.
To make matters worse, the Biden administration has announced intended hefty tax increases to help cover the planned $7.3-trillion proposed fiscal year 2025 federal budget. Included within that budget will be continuing trillions of American dollars in additional spending, rather than working to cut back on our debt, “with roughly half of the (additional) tax revenue being plowed into new entitlement expansions.” Among which appears to be $3.5-billion “to supercharge mass migration from the Middle East!” The exact opposite of what our nation needs, when closing both borders (south and north), with some hefty deportations, would be the right formula going forward
As an early warning signal, one columnist has now published an article titled “It’s time to declare a financial state of emergency.” Between apparent currently unrestrainable inflation and seemingly unrestrained federal spending, that “state of emergency” call may not be unreasonable. The fact is, either somehow or by somebody, our runaway federal spending must be contained and our increasingly dire federal debt status must be reduced. Wrote that same columnist referenced above, once federal (and state) spending reaches the same level as repeatedly hiked-up tax income (i.e. 100%), “You reach communism”! And that dire warning says it all regarding our current and continuing excessive government spending.
Following inflation, and the related fiscal resource-draining government spending, comes public concern over illegal migration. Illegal immigration polls as the greatest current concern among Americans (28%), out of 15 identified concern-priorities. By the way, you’ll be interested, if not downright delighted to know, that the lowest Gallup polled priority for Americans today is “Environment/Pollution/Climate Change,” which came in at just a 2% priority or concern among polled Americans, given the press of other more threatening day-to-day issues currently facing our country.
It’s reported that total illegals admitted by CBP under the Biden-encouraged open border policy now stands at over 10-million, and that may not include the “got-aways.” That number does include more than 950,000 illegals (reportedly more than the population of South Dakota!) under Mr. Biden’s so-called “parole pipeline” which enables illegal migrants, at a rate of 30,000 max per month, to pre-apply for admission by using the app, “CBP One,” and then, with preferential treatment, being flown, from numerous world nations, to various cities in the U.S., at government (i.e., taxpayer) expense. Unbelievable, as Mr. Biden continues to purposely pack the nation with illegals intended to become future (if not in 2024!) Democrat voters. Just amazing how potential future (or current and, thus, fraudulent!) voters are being imported, in clear violation of U.S. immigration laws, right before our eyes. Little of this is humanitarian. It’s all political by intent and design.
Perhaps somehow worse, DHS records show that almost “25,000 migrants from Special Interest Countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa have been apprehended entering the United States during the first six-months of fiscal year 2024, which began in October. According to a CBP source, most of the migrants, including single adult males from countries subject to travel warnings by the U.S. State Department due to terrorism, were released into the United Staes to pursue asylum claims.” And admission of Special Interest Migrants continues. Perhaps worse, among the migrants admitted or stopped, 200,000 were designated for deportation, but their cases were dismissed, because the “Biden administration failed to file the necessary paperwork!” Perhaps intentionally? Bottom line, we really don’t know how many migrants with law breaking or even terrorism intent have been admitted to America. There is no question that we may be subjected to a repeat of 9/11, or worse, at some point in the near or intermediate future, due solely to the administration’s persistent open southern border and the lack of adequate vetting or other security controls, due in large part to the sheer mass volume of migrants clamoring for admission.
Meanwhile, the cost of dealing with, and caring for, this unprecedented surge and mass of migrants, is literally billions of dollars, and to be exact, it’s now over $150-billion taxpayer dollars annually, creating yet another federal and state spending need and problem. To the point where, in at least a couple of cities, law enforcement budgets have reportedly actually been cut back in order to pay for the expenses for illegal immigrants! Talk about a dangerous trade-off. Ultimately to be laid at the doorstep of Mr. Biden’s incomprehensible and illegal open border stance. Meanwhile in Chicago, the City Council there approved an additional $70-million for the care of the city’s illegal migrants, which understandably caused an uproar among residents protesting the prioritizing of funds for illegals over the needs of the city’s lower income citizens. Not often mentioned when considering the enormous national & states expense providing overall care for these millions of migrants, costs already in the multi-billions of dollars that we don’t really have, is the cost of educating illegal migrant children. In Buffalo, New York, for instance, already unhappy about New York City busing migrants on up into northern cities within the state, the school system there has already spent $800,000 (and growing), for the schooling of just 76 young migrant children, producing resentment toward the source, New York City, for not providing any migrant educating reimbursement dollars, “not a penny”!
Then, there’s this non-amusing quirk among some illegals seeking U.S. entry: pretending to be U.S. citizens! Yep, in at least one port of entry, Laredo, Texas, “several migrants were arrested attempting to assume the identity of U.S. citizens. The migrant imposters were found to be in possession of valid birth certificates that did not belong to them.” Others have attempted to use other forms of fake identity documents. The illegal migrant implosion, creative or otherwise, will not end unless Mr. Biden tosses up a short-term ‘Hail Mary’ pre-election solution, or more likely, until his ultra-liberal/progressive administration comes to an end this November, which we can only hope comes to pass!
Another concern among the residents of America’s major cities, principally those being run currently by Democrats (not a political prejudice, but a fact), is the alarming increase in serious crime. This following the past pressured move by some metropolitan areas to cut back, or even “defund,” their law enforcement capabilities, leading most certainly to the increase in domestic crime. Most or many such cities are reversing the funding cuts, but some are now faced with underwriting additional expenses for migrant care, so heaven only knows how these funding reallotments will be paid for, at the resulting cost of increased taxes and/or even more crime?
And, then, also among the deepest concerns of our rational citizens, the state of education in America, perhaps illustrated in the negative at the university level by the recent outbreak of protests against the survival of democratic Israel as a nation and the seeming now-emerging hatred for our Jewish-American citizens, in favor of the Palestinians and the terror group Humas, cast implosably as the ‘victims,’ with Israel and Jews now cast as the antagonists (reversal of reality) in this likely not soon ending saga.
But real and more central to the concern story is what seems to be happening at our elementary, middle, and high school levels. Post-pandemic impact, the math and English testing scores of America’s youth have, in general, declined to a concerning level, given the centrality of those two subjects, at the very least, for predicted success in either college study or with future employment. Or for that matter, the ability, or lack of same, to produce acceptable scores, as well, on the required initial aptitude testing for enlistment into one of our military service branches, at a time when numbers of enlistees are falling short of most branch needs and expectations.
In addition to seeming academic subject matter deficiencies, there has become non-curricular focus on sex instruction, transgender encouragement, with or more likely without parental involvement, and the separation of student races under the misguided theme of ‘white supremacy,” which conveniently, but mistakenly, places all whites as oppressors and all the men and women of other races as their victims. These distractions from normal subject matter seem to have emerged, post-pandemic, and are decidedly inappropriate within traditional, and needed, normal school instruction.
Then leading into our college and universities, there has become the politicized instruction showcased most-pointedly by the recent public display of anti-Israel & anti-semitism fervor, contrary to American tradition, initiated by elite East Coast universities, then spread to West Coast institutions and others. As often happens, this apparent anti-craze, with ‘protest’ leaders too often paid by invisible benefactors, is now out of control and will likely only dissipate publicly, when enough arrests and other punishments are made, or when the support funds run out. Of longer term, more general and deeper concern for Americans is the dislike, disrespect, or even hate for our America, being indoctrinated within liberalized college classrooms, and perhaps even within high school instruction, by politicized, self-absorbed teachers & professors who feel compelled to pass along their own attitudes against America’s social and economic systems, even though it was those very systems that made instructors’ own schooling and later academic positions (tenured!) possible. How soon we forget our multiple blessings, living as we do in the greatest, freest, constitutionally-guided, most opportunity providing, best economic system nation in the world, past and present.
Unless the mind is allowed to all too frequently wander freely into the endless world of total fault-finding and sheer fantasy, it is hard to believe that adults, especially, can reach other than the clear conclusion that America is a land of unlimited blessings and opportunities, and certainly not a land to dislike, discredit or even outright hate. Fear we may have lost, in general, at least a part of a younger generation when it comes to attitude, genuine effort, applying oneself, and to the value and satisfaction of real work. Wrote columnist Jack Wisdom (perfect last name for this topic) on the subject of education and our young people: “Students need a sense of unity that transcends race, sex, economic status, and religious affiliation (atheism is now posited by too many as a unifying force and religion as disunifying). We must return to educational values that motivated the country before progressive philosophy became dominant, a time when skills, cooperation, moral values, and national unity were valued.”
While the topics herein discussed are perhaps not the only unsustainable ones, they seem to be currently the ones creating the largest concern and uncertainly in the minds of most Americans. There is at least one other that comes to mind, although slipped by the administration under the federal carpet, one that directly impacts U.S. security, and that is the depleted status of America’s Strategic Oil Reserves. Initially reduced, and carelessly so, to almost one-half capacity by the Biden administration during the pandemic in the faulty political hope of reducing prices at the pump for Americans. It did not, and no effort has been made by the administration since to refill the Reserve. Appears they are said to be waiting for the current inflation-driven price of domestic oil to come down! Meanwhile our nation is at serious risk, should a devastating national weather event occur or should a foreign enemy decide to attack us from afar or from within (terrorism). From its beginning until now, this careless, risk-filled failure to refill our Strategic Oil Reserves, regardless of reason, leaves the nation at possible jeopardy for depleted domestic oil supply, and it is, thus, an apparent careless lack of concern for public wellbeing and safety on the part of the current administration.
And one other unsustainable practical and economic concern is the administration’s embrace of all things ‘green,’ the questionable emphasis on so-called ‘climate change.’ Other than the climate changing naturally with the annual four seasons (!), the administration’s supposition is that our nation, and the world, they say, are both under threat of possible extinction due to what used to be called ‘global warming.’ Our politicalized solution is to expend continuing billions of American dollars on ever-questionable ventures, some functioning at present, and some futuristic, all ‘green’ in nature. In addition to the unprecedented expenditures of federal monies that, as repeatedly discussed, we clearly don’t have, there is the reality that ‘green’ investments made now to save our country from alleged future destruction, are really less about the politically-assumed concept of ‘climate change,’ and far more about the ultra-liberal, ever increasing lust for, it seems, increasingly centralized government in America. The covert desire for more and more power and control centered in Washington, D.C. The real goal, then, is shifting away from citizen-focused democracy and capitalism, to increased power and ever-increasing control in the hands of a politically-elite-driven central government. Sounds like fiction, but yet all too real behind the purposeful smoke screen of ‘climate change.’ Something to consider and think about, as the nation’s debt continues ever-higher due to all manner of central government spending, too often, it seems, on questionable, self-fulfilling projects and goals.
May our great nation somehow continue to sensibly prosper and grow, in the best interests of our citizens, despite seemingly too many costly federal efforts to the contrary.
(Fact Sources: More than 1/3 of citizens now renting feel they’ll never be sable to afford their own home via breitbart.com, Amy Furr, 4-23-24; “Largest tax hike ever” despite record-high inflation via foxbusiness.com, Kyle Morris, 4-20-24; The fear of excessive spending reaching the level of communism via americanthinker.com, Pete Colan, 4-3-24; Illegal immigration polled as greatest public concern, as climate change polled as the least via breitbart.com, Wendell Husebo, 4-22-24; Even more migrant billions to be spent super charging mass migration from the Middle East via breitbart.com, Neil Munro, 4-25-24; Parole Pipeline illegals imported via breitbart.com, John Binder, 4-15-24; Buffalo schools young migrant education costs via dailymail.com, James Reinl, 4-23-24; Special Interest Migrants continue to be admitted to our nation via breitbart.com, Randy Clark, 4-8-24; Deportation paperwork not filed by the administration via dailywire.com, Luke Rosiak, 3-20-24; $150-billion annual cost of caring for illegal migrants via breitbart.com, John Binder, 4-15-24; Chicago expands funding for illegals vs. residents via foxnews.com, Adam Shaw, 4-22-24; Illegal migrants posing as U.S. citizens upon entry via breitbart.com, Randy Clark, 3-5-24; Students need a sense of unity via americanthinker.com, Jack Wisdom, 4-7-24; SOR depletion leaves the nation at risk via foxbusiness.com, Bradford Betz, 4-17-24).