Guess what, everyone? We’re broke, we’re spending money like mad, the economy is in a recession whether the Biden administration wants to admit it or not, and now the national debt has hit a new milestone after hitting a new milestone just eight months ago.

Believe it or not, back in February, the national debt hit a new record high of $30 trillion. That number is simply too big for most of the public to fully comprehend, and while the media bemoans the national debt when a Republican is in office, there wasn’t the same hand-wringing coverage. And then Grandpa Joe got a huge pat on the back for announcing in May that the federal government would actually be making a payment on the national debt.

Even PolitiFact, which has become nothing more than a fig leaf providing excuses for why Democrats are good and Republicans are EEEEEEVIL, could only rate Old Man Biden’s comments as “half true” in May. (PolitiFact also claimed that the national debt was $23.8 trillion for their article, when it clearly was not. Whoops! So much for “fact-checking.”)

The Treasury Department has said it’s planning to make a modest debt-reduction outlay in the second quarter of 2022, but when looked at in context, this paydown isn’t the notable fiscal turnaround that Biden implies. The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this article.”

In a memo released May 2, Treasury announced that it intends to pay down $26 billion in debt during 2022’s second quarter. This is typically accomplished by paying off outstanding Treasury securities so the government doesn’t have to keep paying interest.”

But there are some important bits of context that Biden left out.”

One is that the same Treasury memo that announced the upcoming debt pay-down noted that during the first quarter of 2022, the government needed to borrow $668 billion, and during the third quarter of 2022, it expects to borrow $182 billion.”

In other words, the modest paydown in the second quarter would be overwhelmed by the new borrowing during the first and third quarters — complicating the point Biden was trying to make about fiscal responsibility.”

Meanwhile, inflation is at incredible highs with no sign yet of slowing, the Biden administration keeps shoveling money into Ukraine (your mileage may vary as to whether this is a noble cause or a lost one, but the point remains that we are throwing money we don’t have at Ukraine), the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” will actually spend money like a drunken sailor on “climate change” causes, and Biden is attempting to illegally bail out college debt to the tune of at least $400 billion.

So much for paying down the national debt. Way to go, Joe!

Treasury Department data released Tuesday showed that the total national debt was $31.123 trillion as of Monday.”

The new milestone was reached even as the federal government’s insatiable spending has slowed considerably as the COVID-19 pandemic has waned. In the months following the outbreak, the national debt rose by $1 trillion in just a month’s time — not just once but twice in 2020.”

As a result, the federal government spent $3.1 trillion more than it received in 2020, and it spent $2.8 trillion more than it received the following year.”

In 2022, the budget deficit is expected to be about $1 trillion. Some experts believe $1 trillion per year in new debt is the floor given growth in entitlement spending as well as new spending priorities set by Congress this year. Those priorities include the health and environmental policy bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act and assisting Ukraine in its war with Russia.”

And both sides of the aisle have kicked the can down the road when it comes to actually fixing any of the impending fiscal disasters.

(The debt news) comes just nine months after the last milestone of $30 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and only five years after reaching $20 trillion. The unprecedented spree of government borrowing brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic, and further borrowing to stimulate the economy, has helped to contribute to the majority of this figure.”

“This is a new record no one should be proud of,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the CRFB, said in a statement. “In the past 18 months, we’ve witnessed inflation rise to a 40-year high, interest rates climbing in part to combat this inflation, and several budget-busting pieces of legislation and executive actions. Just in 2022, Congress and the President have approved a combined $1.9 trillion in new borrowing, and President Biden has approved $4.9 trillion in new deficits since taking office. We are addicted to debt.”

“Even more troubling than where the debt stands now is where it’s going. Our nation faces significant fiscal challenges in the near term. Medicare is only six years from insolvency, and Social Security insolvency is only 12 years away. Yet policymakers have put forth no plan to put either program on strong fiscal footing,” MacGuineas said.”

I wouldn’t say that we are addicted to debt, I would say it is an addiction to spending. Both sides want to play Santa Claus and give their voters all the goodies and treats, with no care for how to pay for it later. That’s someone else’s problem, they think. And whenever someone comes up with an actual plan to reform Medicare or Social Security, they are automatically cursed out for DARING to suggest changing anything. No one wants the bad press, and everyone wants to be reelected. So the debt ceiling keeps being raised, and everyone in government over the age of seventy has no problem with that. After all, will they be around to reap the whirlwind when everything falls apart? Chaos is coming, but hey, it won’t be today, right?

Remember when Barack Obama said that George W. Bush’s spending that had increased the national debt was bad, and then raised the national debt even more than that? Good times, good times. Even The Daily Beast had to admit, while complaining about Trump’s spending and debt levels, that this is a problem owned by both sides, because neither side wants to take the blame for a shut down. It will take someone with more political cojones than Biden (and more functioning brain cells) to actually introduce fiscal responsibility, and with more media savvy than currently is seen at the national level to combat the inevitable hysteria of our self-appointed “betters” in order to make a direct appeal to the American people for financial sanity.

Or, we get President AOC and the entire economic house of cards collapses completely under the weight of socialism. Sadly, this outcome is even more likely than getting someone willing to rein in government spending. Prepare yourself accordingly.

Featured image via Gunjan2021 on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license