Playing Monopoly

 

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Movie producer and left-wing activist Michael Moore recently told a crowd in Madison, Wisconsin, “Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe… America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash.” He went further: “The truth is, there’s lots of money to go around. LOTS.”

 

Really? Let’s look at some facts.

 

The Federal budget deficit for just this past month, February 2011, was $233 billion. You read that correctly: In only one month we spent 233 billion dollars more than what we had.

 

Here’s another fact. The total deficit for this year is projected to be at least $1.5 trillion. Let me say that again: 1.5 trillion dollars in expenses over and above revenue in just this year alone!

 

And that’s just our annual operating deficit and not our total debt.

 

So, let’s take a look at that picture.

 

The total debt for the United States right now exceeds $14.5 trillion. Yes, that’s right. We have borrowed money from other countries (like China) to the tune of over 14.5 trillion dollars! That’s over 93% of our annual GDP!

 

Now, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if we are spending this much more than we have in one month, this much more money than we have in one year, and if we now have accumulated this much total debt, that Mr. Moore may be a tad bit off base in saying we have enough “money to go around” and that we aren’t “broke.”

 

That is, of course, unless we “are awash in cash” just because we keep printing more of it.

 

And therein lies the problem: If we are “awash in cash” because we just keep printing it, then we may have “lots” of Monopoly money, but we are still broke.