I voted for Clinton and was glad to see the reduction in the deficit. I voted for Gore and was dismayed with the subsequent ballooning of the national debt.
I thought about contributing to reduce the debt, but then I realized that would only be enabling further bad spending habits.
The cliche answer about writing to your congressman doesn’t work… I’ve done it and it accomplishes little.
So, how can the average citizen actually improve government fiscal responsibility?
Keep writing your Congresscritters. Believe me, even if it looks pointless, that all of those constituent contacts are being tallyed and graphed. Without your input it looks like fewer people care about the debt.
Contribute to candidates at all levels who are deficit hawks. I acknowledge that many run on this topic then hoist the Jolly Roger when elected.
Contribute to think tanks, PACs and such that have as their primary focus deficit control and debt reduction. Be warned, many of such that have ‘Tax’ in their names are actually just tax-cutters who don’t care about deficits or see them as a means to limit government in the long term.
Run for office yourself and make deficit control one of the planks in your platform.
You are NOT powerless.
You mean you didn’t enjoy the smoke blown up your backside from the personally
written, computer generated, form letters?
Except for personal satisfaction, writing your congress person on this will have no
affect. And you’re out 37 cents.
Here’s a way to get a different response. Write your letter as usual, but include
a sentence that says "I feel so strongly about this issue, I’m enclosing $500 for your reelection campaign. "(Don’t include the money of course.)
If I understand economics correctly (which is an open question), you can personally opt out of the debt. The government is borrowing money by selling treasury bonds, and you might consider that so many of them are sold in your name to cover your share of the debt. Maybe you calculate the debt on a per capita basis, or maybe you adjust for your taxable income as a fraction of all taxable incomes - whatever feels right. So, whatever that quantity of bonds is, go buy that many. Now your share of the government is borrowing money from you on your own behalf, and so you’ve cancelled out your share.
Jeez, I’m pretty clueless about this, so somebody please come along and clean this up and paint me the fool I am, if I have this all fouled up.
I’d prefer the goverment learn fiscal responsibility. Buying bonds does the opposite, it enables deficit spending, which is the behavior I’m trying to discourage. Besides, if the debt gets out of hand, the government may not be able to pay off the treasury bonds and will have to default. When this happens, I’d lose money.
More likely you’d get to keep the money but it would be in devalued dollars.
Move to a foreign country and then worry about its national debt?
Here’s something very easy: simply buy government bons of the same value as your expect share of the debt (i.e. what you wil llikely have to pay out in taxes to cancel the debt). Now, suddendly, you get out in interest pretty much exactly the same as you (or your children) have to pay out taxes. You will have instantly transformed yourself from someone who owes debt to someone who is also owed the debt… by the exact same amount.
I don’t think that works, because my share of the debt is apparently equal to what I pay in taxes each year. If what you said was true, I could pay twice my taxes one year and never have to pay taxes again. If only!
Besides, what if everyone did this and next year the government doubles its spending? Everybody again buys more bonds (but double the amount this time) and the government responds by quadrupling its spending. How does that sound?