OPINION —
As the first regular session of the quadrennium evolves, there is a myriad of complex issues arising. I am reminded of three simple truisms regarding the Alabama Legislature and the governing of the state of Alabama.
First of all, if anything significant or controversial or any major initiative is to be addressed, then it is dealt with in the first year of the four-year quadrennium, giving legislators three years before their constituents vote on them again. The political pragmatism and expectation is that voters will forget.
Secondly, there may seem to be an urge to deal with all the hundreds of bills that have been thrown into the hopper, and special interest groups or lobbyists are espousing that a particular piece of legislation has to be dealt with or it will be the downfall of the state. Not so. The only definitive legislation that has to be dealt with is the state budget. That is the only constitutional mandate required of legislators in a session.
The third truism surrounds the second. In regard to the passage of the budget, our Constitution wisely has a sacrosanct conservative mandate that there must be a balanced budget. The Alabama Legislature cannot deficit spend or overspend the projected revenues for the year. Our current super-Republican majority legislature is so conservative, they not only adhere to the constitutional prohibition against deficit spending, but they do not even spend 100% of the year’s budget. For the past decade, they have put state revenues away into a rainy day fund. They are truly budgeting conservatively.
If that were only true of our United States Congress. Our U.S. representatives and senators are simply printing money in Washington. They are recklessly spending our nation into an abysmal hole, one that we may never be able to get out of. This tremendous federal deficit is our nation’s most acute problem. The United States cannot survive and keep spending money that we do not have. Our national debt is so high that we are basically nothing more than a third-world country. Communist China will not take us over militarily or by flying balloons over our country. They will take us over without firing one bullet. They will defeat us economically. Again, it is a serious problem that must be addressed if we are to survive as a nation.
The national debt is so devastating that within the next year, it will be higher than our Gross National Product (GNP). In fiscal year 2022 alone, the deficit was $1.4 trillion. The total national deficit is so high that it is difficult for the treasury or economic analysts to accurately assess. It is between $400 trillion to $528 trillion. Folks, that is trillion with a “t” — not billions. To put it closer to home, the federal debt per person for every man, woman and child — and yes, that includes you and your children and grandchildren — is $96,403 per person. That is what your federal government legislators have done to you. It is simply unsustainable.
The United States cannot continue down this path of spending itself into oblivion. We cannot keep spending like drunken sailors. Our great conservative president, Ronald Reagan, made a legendary statement when facing a free-spending Democratic congress: “You know people are saying that the Democratic Congress is spending money like drunken sailors. That’s an insult to sailors; they don’t hold a candle to Congress.”
One of my wise readers wrote me this anecdote about the crisis. She said, “Democrats are determined to bankrupt the country. Just paying interest on the debt is going to wreck the economy and very soon. What they are doing would be analogous to my going out and buying a luxurious ocean liner, a castle in Spain and a Lamborghini and charging it all to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.” She is not the only one of my readers that is concerned with this crisis.
Our United States federal deficit and debt are our nation’s number-one problem. Hopefully, one of the GOP presidential aspirants will make this their major political platform. They may be surprised at how many conservative Americans will follow them. We will see.
See you next week.
Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Flowers may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
