Democrats and Republicans MUST Stop Lying About Their Deficit Spending and Debt, Beginning July 5, 2026, if America is to Survive

There is no more kicking the can down the road to delay starting the admittedly painful rehabilitation treatment of our Federal Spending Addiction (FSA)

This missive is being written in the morning hours of July 3, 2026. We are in the midst of celebrating America’s 250th commemoration of the proclamation of our Declaration of Independence from Britain on July 4, 1776.

Among the most encouraging developments in the days leading up to this momentous holiday has been the sight of hundreds of thousands of Europeans coming to our shores for the FIFA World Soccer Cup and spontaneously erupting in praise and enthusiasm for the amazing quality of everyday life in this country.

You cannot help but be elated watching those thousands of joyous Scots, Norwegians, Brazilians and fans from so many more nations, shouting “USA, USA!!!” and singing “Country Roads” as they celebrate in our streets.

This delightful explosion of Europeans loving America and Americans follows their realization once they arrived on our shores that their political, cultural and intellectual leaders had lied to them about us for many years. We Americans are a welcoming, generous, hard-working, compassionate, and patriotic people, not the imperialist, gun-toting, money-grubbing, dangerous White Supremacists of which their leaders told them constantly to be wary.

But we Americans have a realization of our own that we must reach about our nation and its leaders that is vastly more important - America is headed for financial and economic catastrophe and there is little time left to take the needed measures to avoid an awful national disaster. And the brutal reality of this situation is that both of our two major political parties have been lying about this for decades.

Here are the facts:

America’s national debt is $40 trillion and growing steadily because our government is spending $7+ trillion every year, while bringing in only about $5 trillion in revenue. And both parties are pushing “solutions” that are, at best, half-measures.

Consider a recent analysis from Open the Books (OTB), the amazing non-profit government watchdog launched in 2009 to post on one publicly accessible web site the biggest collection ever assembled anywhere of government spending at the federal, state and municipal levels. The OTB folks mean it when they say they are all about posting “Every Dime. Online. In Real Time.”

Be forewarned, this analysis is entitled “‘Total Boomer Luxury Communism:’ Why the Federal Deficit is on Autopilot.” If you are, like me, of the Boomer generation born between 1946 and 1964, be prepared for some hard truths. The most VIP single word in the title is “Autopilot.” Unless that switch is turned off, we’re not going to make it.

The OTB web site is quite simply the most potentially powerful tool ever for ensuring transparency and accountability in government at all levels. That “potentially” qualifier isn’t, however, a veiled criticism of OTB. Rather, it is a warning that we Americans, all of us in every generation who love this country and want it to continue as the freest, most prosperous nation in history for another century have got to wake up and demand the truth from our political, academic, intellectual and media leadership.

And to do that, we have got to know the hard truth about our problem and the actual solutions. For too long, Democrats and Republicans have sold us a bill of goods with proposed remedies that do nothing but delay the inevitable while assuring us that we have nothing to worry about.

Here’s how OTB puts this uncomfortable reality:

“In the 2021 black comedy Don’t Look Up, Leonardo DiCaprio plays an astronomer who discovers a comet is about to collide with Earth. Politicians claim they will avert disaster despite having no plan for doing so. The rest of the world mostly ignores the problem, even after seeing the comet with their own eyes. The film ends with humanity being wiped out.

“The same thing is happening with entitlement spending. Under current policy, Social Security and Medicare will cause the U.S. to default on its debt within 25 years, upending life as we know it. Republicans claim they can balance the budget without cutting benefits; they’ll instead root out fraud and cut other spending. Democrats say they can do the same by increasing taxes.

“Anyone with a calculator and the math skills of a fourth grader knows those claims are baloney. So why does no one talk about it?”

Calling this “baloney” is too kind. And OTB has the data to prove it:

“The federal government spent $7 trillion in fiscal year 2025 but collected only $5.2 trillion — a gap of $1.8 trillion that was added directly to the federal debt. Even in an extreme scenario where Congress axed all discretionary spending — eliminating the entire military and almost every other federal government function — the budget would have just barely been balanced.

“Let’s try it another way. The Government Accountability Office estimates that $233 billion to $521 billion is lost to fraud annually. The top one percent of wealthiest Americans pay $824 billion in income taxes, and corporations pay $497 billion. That means even in a fantasy world where fraud was nonexistent and corporations and wealthy individuals both doubled their tax payments, the budget would just barely be balanced.

“A slightly more feasible, if unlikely, scenario: eliminate 50% of fraud, increase income taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans by 25%, and cut discretionary spending by 25%. Nope, it still doesn’t work. The federal deficit would have been $800 billion last year. And that was before President Donald Trump proposed a 19% increase to the discretionary budget for 2027, which would be the second-largest one-year spending spike since at least 1962.”

Yes, every effort to eliminate 100% of the waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending must be made. And even if we confiscated every dollar of the income of the top 1% of all Americans, the total received — $58 Trillion — would only fund the government for about eight years, at current spending levels.

But the debt and deficit problem is vastly bigger, and neither of the approaches of our two major political parties will solve the problem. That’s because, thanks to FSA, our politicians for the most part simply cannot stop spending more than the government receives in revenue. And, because they fear what we voters will do to them — not re-elect them — they won’t tell us the truth about what must be done.

As OTB describes it:

“Most politicians choose to peddle the illusion that Americans can have their cake and eat it too. Trump claims that Vice President J.D. Vance will ‘literally be able to balance our American budget’ by stopping fraud in blue states. Democrats exclaim that fighting fraud is equivalent to taking food from the mouths of the hungry or, in classic political parlance, throwing grandma off a cliff.”

The heart of this problem is Social Security and Medicare, both of which are headed to bankruptcy within a decade or less, unless benefits are cut and radical reforms are adopted to encourage less dependence on these programs.

The reality is that we Boomers have received a great deal from Social Security. The cost per beneficiary, according to OTB, in 1970 was $10,796 and the program’s overall cost was just over $277 Billion. Today, those figures are $22,489 and $1.5 Trillion. In other words, Social Security’s cost per beneficiary has exploded 450%, adjusted for inflation, while the taxable income available to fund the program is nowhere near enough. As an example, the OTB study focuses on taxable income of taxpayers in the 25-34 years old bracket, which has increased only 150% since 1970.

The situation is even worse with Medicare. In 1970, each beneficiary cost the taxpayers $3, 158, and the total budget for the program reached nearly $65 Billion. Today, those figures, adjusted for inflation, are $17,048 and almost $1.2 Trillion.

Put it all together and here’s the problem: Social Security’s total cost is 455% greater and Medicare’s total cost is 1,702% greater. Or look at it from this angle: Federal revenues were 17% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1970 and 17.1% in 2024. But federal spending in 1970 was 17.2% of GDP and in 2024 23% of GDP.

Somebody famous once said “things that cannot go on, won’t.” That’s exactly the case with our federal finances today, we cannot go on spending as we have for decades. As OTB puts it:

“The numbers are no longer debatable. Social Security and Medicare are on a collision course with insolvency that polite political rhetoric cannot wish away. While rooting out fraud and improving efficiency should be one of Washington’s top priorities, that alone cannot close the gap.

“The baby boomer generation benefited from favorable demographics, strong wage growth and affordable homes and mortgage rates during their working years, but those conditions no longer exist. Younger Americans now face stagnant wealth, crushing housing costs and the prospect of paying into programs that may not be there for them — all while watching their tax dollars subsidize golf outings, pet grooming, and high-speed internet for retirees.”

Our parents were known as the “Greatest Generation” because they endured the Great Depression, then rallied from the disaster at Pearl Harbor to win World War II and save our freedom. We Boomers have benefitted immensely from their courage and sacrifice. Now it’s time for us to become the new Greatest Generation by rescuing our nation from fiscal insanity.