Modern day America loves to spend money it doesn’t have. 

 For a clear window into how bad it is, witness that between 2000 and 2022, the total public and private debt in the United States went from $28.63 trillion to $93.5 trillion.

Who’s spending all this make-believe money?

Well, non-financial corporations account for about $25 trillion. That’s a big number, but most of them make money and can pay it back.

Our students – who’ve borrowed $1.75 trillion – are in a less enviable position because most of these smart people can’t. They’ve borrowed money for expensive universities that routinely offer little training on how to actually be useful. 

One can understand why the thus-impaired would cheer socialism and put their vote on Biden’s lap in exchange for a get-out-of-hell pass. 

That their bills are subsequently being shuffled onto the backs of authentic working people, our children, and their children is apparently of no concern. 

For good reason, “God-bless the proletariat” is a common cheer of the educated.

Speaking of working people, as a population, we have worked ourselves into $1.1 trillion in credit card debt. When you factor in interest rates averaging 28 percent, we’ve got a lot of families heading for a modern-day version of debtor prison.

At a time of unprecedented tax revenue, growth and prosperity, Asheville and Buncombe County have taken on an amazing amount of debt to fund the nice over the necessary. That’s a nifty thing until the economy goes south. History tells us it always does. 

Everyone who believes we’re standing on solid economic ground, please offer to donate extra funds to the Asheville-Buncombe Reparations Committee.

Speaking of those who spend money but don’t make it, USA Today recently announced that every hundred days, America’s federal government is spending a trillion dollars more than it receives in revenue.

Let that sink in.

You probably can’t, because though the hundred rings a bell, the trillion dollars is pretty much beyond most people’s conceptual capacities.

Perhaps this explains why our elected officials — Republicans as surely as Democrats — continue to spend money that doesn’t exist.

One trillion dollars is about how much cash is circulating in America at any given time.

One trillion dollars weighs over 2.2 billion pounds or the equivalent of 630,000 mid-sized cars.

 If one went back in time 2024 years and spent a million dollars a day, the total still wouldn’t reach a trillion dollars

As of this moment, our national debt has reached the 30 trillion-dollar mark. That’s thirty times what most of us can’t comprehend. 

 One explanation for this federal spending insanity can be traced to the Latin phrase “Argumentum Ad Populum” — which roughly translates into “Everybody does it” — which roughly translates into “It’s OK for me to do dumb things because everyone else is doing the same dumb things.”

 Case in point – U.S. Representative Chuck Edwards (R-Flat Rock) recently sent out a press release announcing:

 “Today the House and Senate have passed $18.7 million in funding for targeted community projects in North Carolina’s 11th district. The funding bills passed as part of the fiscal year 2024 appropriations package.”

Yes, that was the latest in D.C.’s endless exercises in playing kick the can.

Earmarks for WNC projects include: $2.8 million for facility upgrades to St. Luke’s Hospital in Polk County, $2.5 million for a new EMS facility in Clay County, $750,000 for water infrastructure improvements in the Town of Murphy, $1 million for broadband expansion in Haywood County, $80,000 for a water rescue boat for emergencies in Graham and Swain counties, $1.3 million for water infrastructure improvements for the Town of Rutherfordton, $1.5 million for public safety communication upgrades in Madison County, $1 million for public safety communication upgrades in Transylvania County, $100,000 for portable substance analyzers for law enforcement in Yancey County, $1.75 million for a new regional wastewater treatment plant in the Town of Canton, $1 million to expand water treatment plant capacity in the Town of Weaverville, $5 million to renovate and upgrade the Workforce & Industry Center at Haywood Community College.

I’m not arguing for or against the merits of these earmarks. I’m very much arguing the dangers of pretending to fund them with money that doesn’t exist. 

Besides, aren’t city and county governments supposed to raise their own revenue and manage their own backyards?

If a first-term N.C. congressman can pull this kind of borrowed money sleight-of-hand in a last-minute “keep the government running” funding bill, can you imagine what the pros can do?

Our elected officials, “Ad Nauseam” are managing to spend one-trillion in non-existent money every 100 days.

This is what’s known in some circles as “Iter Ad Cladem.”