OPINION:
The Republican Party is failing to articulate key facts, primarily financial, affecting proposed and operative major legislation. This is akin to a bank failing to inform a customer that a credit card has been maxed out.
For example, interest on our national debt of nearly $20 trillion is approximately $300 billion a year at current interest rates. This is the fourth-largest expense item in the federal budget. Current unfunded government liabilities for public and private pension guarantees and for FIDC exceed $100 trillion.
There are various estimates for building the wall promised by President Trump. Critics complain about the cost, which has been cited at up to $25 billion. Yet Republicans fail to point out that the current cost of not building the wall is even greater. They fail to point out that it currently costs the government over $50 billion a year to run illegal-immigrant welfare programs. Building the wall would save us perhaps $25 billion each year, in that case.
Additionally, an estimated 50,000 Americans died from drug overdoses this past year. That death rate has doubled in the past eight years, according to the National Institutes of Health. Most drugs are smuggled through the porous Mexican border. There is no known estimate of the cost of treating drug addicts or its cost to our economy, but it has to be equal to the cost of building the wall.
The cost of Obamacare is in the headlines, but why isn’t the Republican Party pointing out the cost of subsidies for needy people? This has been estimated at over $300 billion a year and growing.
If Republicans continue to ignore critical factors, needed programs may not be implemented wisely (if at all), and existing programs will be addressed in isolation of all relevant factors, especially cost. The result: When the financial collapse of America comes, there will be nothing left for anybody.
WARREN MANISON
Potomac
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