The Bill Is Coming Due — And Nobody Wants to Hear It
The Bill Is Coming Due — And Nobody Wants to Hear It
Governor DeSantis said it plainly this week in Kentucky: Interest payments on the national debt now eclipse defense spending. Our national debt is projected to reach a record $64 trillion by 2036 — triple the pre-COVID figure. Twenty-eight states have already passed resolutions supporting a federal balanced budget amendment. Every state except Vermont has a balanced budget requirement in its constitution. It's time Congress lived by the same rules the rest of us do.
I've been watching this slow-motion train wreck for a long time.
Back during the Obama years, I stood before a room of about 50 retired men and women — clients and prospective clients — and walked them through the numbers. The national deficit. The debt. Then the unfunded mandates at the federal and state level. Then municipalities — pensions especially — Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit. When I added it all up, my estimate of total unfunded obligations was somewhere around $34 trillion.
The room went quiet. Not the good kind of quiet.
It didn't go over well. Denial is a powerful thing, even among smart people.
That was then. Today, the federal debt alone is approaching double that figure — and we haven't even started counting the unfunded mandates, state obligations, and municipal pension disasters still sitting off the books. My best estimate now? We are approaching — or will soon reach — **$100 trillion in total obligations** when you fold it all in.
History is not kind to nations that reach a certain ratio of debt to gross domestic product. Revolutions happen. I don't want that. It's bad for business. It's bad for everything. But you can feel it in the tone and temperament of the country right now. People are not happy. And I'm watching more and more younger Americans channeling Howard Beale — the fictional television anchor at the center of the 1976 film *Network*, brought to life by the brilliant Peter Finch. In one of the most memorable scenes in American cinema, Beale throws away the script, leans into the camera, and tells his audience to open their windows and shout into the streets: *"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore."*
The performance was so powerful, so achingly human, that Peter Finch won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He never got to hold that Oscar. He died of a heart attack in January 1977 — just weeks before the ceremony. The Academy awarded him posthumously, the first time in history that had ever been done.
That scene is fifty years old now. It feels like it was written yesterday.
Here's what worries me most for my clients and their generation: as Boomers pass on and Millennials take their place, there are simply fewer of them. That younger generation is going to have serious voting power — and they may decide they're done paying for benefits they'll never receive. The cuts that follow could be substantial and swift.
The solution has never been complicated. It's always the same three choices: **make more, spend less, or adjust your expectations.** Some combination of those three is the only path forward. It has never been more difficult than that.
But something has to give.
---
*And with that said, as I always say, Tippecanoe and Tyler Too — I'm out of here.*
*— Paul Truesdell, Truesdell Wealth, Inc. | Fiduciary Advisor | Ocala, Florida*
Governor DeSantis said it plainly this week in Kentucky: Interest payments on the national debt now eclipse defense spending. Our national debt is projected to reach a record $64 trillion by 2036 — triple the pre-COVID figure. Twenty-eight states have already passed resolutions supporting a federal balanced budget amendment. Every state except Vermont has a balanced budget requirement in its constitution. It's time Congress lived by the same rules the rest of us do.
I've been watching this slow-motion train wreck for a long time.
Back during the Obama years, I stood before a room of about 50 retired men and women — clients and prospective clients — and walked them through the numbers. The national deficit. The debt. Then the unfunded mandates at the federal and state level. Then municipalities — pensions especially — Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit. When I added it all up, my estimate of total unfunded obligations was somewhere around $34 trillion.
The room went quiet. Not the good kind of quiet.
It didn't go over well. Denial is a powerful thing, even among smart people.
That was then. Today, the federal debt alone is approaching double that figure — and we haven't even started counting the unfunded mandates, state obligations, and municipal pension disasters still sitting off the books. My best estimate now? We are approaching — or will soon reach — **$100 trillion in total obligations** when you fold it all in.
History is not kind to nations that reach a certain ratio of debt to gross domestic product. Revolutions happen. I don't want that. It's bad for business. It's bad for everything. But you can feel it in the tone and temperament of the country right now. People are not happy. And I'm watching more and more younger Americans channeling Howard Beale — the fictional television anchor at the center of the 1976 film *Network*, brought to life by the brilliant Peter Finch. In one of the most memorable scenes in American cinema, Beale throws away the script, leans into the camera, and tells his audience to open their windows and shout into the streets: *"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore."*
The performance was so powerful, so achingly human, that Peter Finch won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He never got to hold that Oscar. He died of a heart attack in January 1977 — just weeks before the ceremony. The Academy awarded him posthumously, the first time in history that had ever been done.
That scene is fifty years old now. It feels like it was written yesterday.
Here's what worries me most for my clients and their generation: as Boomers pass on and Millennials take their place, there are simply fewer of them. That younger generation is going to have serious voting power — and they may decide they're done paying for benefits they'll never receive. The cuts that follow could be substantial and swift.
The solution has never been complicated. It's always the same three choices: **make more, spend less, or adjust your expectations.** Some combination of those three is the only path forward. It has never been more difficult than that.
But something has to give.
---
*And with that said, as I always say, Tippecanoe and Tyler Too — I'm out of here.*
*— Paul Truesdell, Truesdell Wealth, Inc. | Fiduciary Advisor | Ocala, Florida*