“Hi, I’m Kasie and I’m running for US Senate. Is this your shop?”
Up and down Main Street in Conway last Wednesday, I introduced myself to shop owners, store clerks, strangers, all. But not anymore.
“I’m here for the day, just learning about your town and sharing a little bit about me and the campaign.”
The Greater Myrtle Beach area is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation. And the people I spoke to feel it. We talked about traffic, construction, corruption, tariffs, and how badly we need to do something different.
I went to Conway for an SC 250 event at the Horry County Museum. Before the event, we had lunch at CheesesteakU. Turns out the owners are from Columbia, so we talked a little about the transformation of Blythewood with the coming of Scout Motors and about what drew them to Conway. Then we talked about next year’s election.
Here are the basics I shared with everyone:
- It’s a midterm election, which historically has low turnout.
- I’m a Libertarian, we select our candidates by convention which will be April 11th.
- The Democrats and Republicans will choose their candidates by primary in June.
- There will be three people on the ballot: A Democrat, a Republican, and me.
- My biggest issue is the national debt. I believe it is an existential threat and neither of the major parties is talking about it.
That’s usually where whomever I was speaking with would really tune in. Eyes widened. Head nodded. Small sounds of agreement escaped their lips. They jutted a hip, put a hand on it, or shifted in their seat.
The national debt is why we have higher prices on everything.
Labor. Materials. Deliveries. Energy. Insurance. Everything is more expensive because we owe money. A lot of money.
Servicing the debt is now the top expense of our federal budget, followed closely by social security, then medicare, other major healthcare, other mandatory spending, and then discretionary spending. We’ll need $10B in cuts to keep the debt at a serviceable level. But spending is growing at 27.3% of Gross Domestic Product every year.
Let me say that again:
We need major cuts just to keep paying our debt.
But congress is spending more every year.
And we can’t earn our way out of this. If the economy grows, so do Medicare and Social Security. They are anchored to wage benefits, so as some people earn more and pay more, others receive more.These programs have no budgetary limits so they continue to expand.
The national debt is not a secret, it’s not hidden in some inaccessible place. It’s right here in the financial report. And we all bear responsibility for it. It’s the one thing we absolutely all have in common.
In entrepreneurship, we say “know your numbers.” People, it’s time we knew our government numbers (resource).
- In 2024, our operating costs decreased (this is good).
- We still spent more than we brought it (this is not good).
- The largest decreases were actually in assumptions – things we expected to pay, but didn’t have to – mostly benefits promised to veterans and retired government employees that were never claimed.
- The largest increase was in the price we pay to service the national debt.
- Our debt to GDP ratio was 98% at the end of fiscal year 2024 (September of last year).
- Generally speaking, a debt-to-income ratio above 50% is considered “risky.”
- We’re projected to reach 535% by 2099.
Okay, that’s a big number 535% and it’s a long way away, 74 years, that’s a full generation from now. But what it means is that our debt is growing, wildly, disproportionately, uncontrollably.
If the manager of your business was running this kind of operation, would you keep them employed?
If your spouse was spending your family into this kind of debt-to-income ratio, would you cut up their credit cards?
If your kid was racking up this kind of debt without prospects for repaying it, would you put a stop to it?
As a country, we have been re-electing the same poor fiscal managers, irresponsible spouses, and reckless children to Congress over and over again. We have been letting the Republicans and Democrats spend well beyond our means. And for what?
So we can pay more in taxes.
So we can get government shutdowns and stubborn inflation. Higher interest rates and insurance premiums. DIstorted markets and bold-faced lies.
At last count, the government collected $258 billion in tariffs, not trillions. A fraction of the national debt, not even enough to make up the annual budget shortfall of $1.8 trillion. So, no, we are not going to tariff our way out of the national debt.
The two biggest drivers of the debt are social security and medicare, the growth of which is outpacing our revenue. Right now we are only paying $.85 on the dollar of Social Security with incoming revenue. We’re borrowing the other $.15.
Social Security is already insolvent. It cannot pay for itself. Borrowing to meet current Social Security benefits is 10% of our debt annual accrual.
Know your numbers. When you know your numbers, the politicians can’t lie to you about where the money is coming from, how it’s being spent, and when or if we’re ever going to get out of this debt.
And they won’t talk about it. Mostly because knowing that the biggest drivers are social security and medicare indicates that to address it, we’ll have to cut those programs. And who benefits from those programs? Special interest groups like AARP and older Americans who vote.
Including the nice lady I met at River City Christmas Shop. She’s frustrated by the abuse of the social security system she sees: people receiving benefits without ever having paid in.
We have a fundamental misunderstanding of these programs, how they work, how much they cost, why they exist, and why they’re unsustainable.
Because, back to the highlight reel of the 2024 Financial Report of the US Government, “The projected continuous rise of the debt-to-GDP ratio indicates that current policy is unsustainable.”
We cannot keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them.
And people know it. The shopowners in Conway that I spoke to all know it. They understand that you cannot spend beyond your means indefinitely. There are ways we can reign this in, I’ll post again on that strategy.
For now, let’s look at next year’s midterm election as the chance to tell Congress the gravy train is over. We must, must, must get our fiscal house in order.
Let’s elect someone who will work on this. Who won’t accept the recklessness of the major parties. Someone who knows the numbers.
I’ll be your flagpole climber. I’ll tell everyone I meet, in Conway and every other place I visit, that what you suspect is happening is absolutely happening: our government is failing.
One million South Carolinians know the government isn’t working for us. So let’s do something about it.
Ready to get in the game? We could use your help. Complete the form below.