Barbarians at the Gates
Tue, 2015-01-06 18:33
News Staff
by Tom Haughey
The Roman Republic fell because it was giving too much free stuff to its people and could no longer conquer enough territories to bring home sufficient plunder to pay the bills. It ran out of money. The dictatorial Roman Empire which followed it fell because Germanic tribes infiltrated its borders and it had become too civilized to defend itself against the incursion. Instead, it incorporated the Germans into its defense structure. Bad idea. At the beginning of 2015 the American Republic’s official debt first surpassed eighteen trillion dollars. Even with increased taxes it continues rising at an alarming rate. Over 60 percent of the people now receive more in benefits from the government than they pay in with their taxes. The accumulated debt now exceeds the country’s gross national product, which puts America in roughly the same category as bankrupt Greece. That’s without factoring in an additional $100 trillion dollars or so in future unfunded obligations.
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