The numbers are not vague. They are right there in the tax receipts. The top ten percent of U.S. earners cover nearly eighty percent of federal income taxes. That is not a talking point. It is raw arithmetic from the IRS. The bottom half pays just three percent. And yet the refrain persists, louder every year. They are not paying their fair share. It is nonsense on stilts.
The federal government rakes in over five trillion dollars annually. That is more than the GDP of Germany. But it still spends nearly seven trillion. The shortfall is not minor. It is a deficit larger than most national economies. Who bridges that gap? Who finances that difference? The question is not rhetorical. It is real. It has teeth. And the answer cuts deeper than people want to admit.
When Congress spends one and three quarter trillion dollars more than it brings in, it is not because it taxed too little. It is because it spent too much. That is not theory. That is accounting. And yet every year, the answer from Washington is the same. Tax more. Blame the rich. Feed the narrative.
But the facts keep breaking through. The United States has a spending crisis, not a revenue crisis. The government does not need more of your money. It needs less of your future. Because that is what borrowing is. It is not magical. It is debt sold to investors and nations who will expect returns. That means more interest payments. Higher yields. Greater obligations. The math gets uglier with every year.
And here is where it becomes dangerous. The average American household now carries over one hundred and sixty thousand dollars of debt when federal obligations are included. Not personal credit. Not car loans. Just their share of Uncle Sam’s spending spree. That is before the next round of stimulus, before the next bailout, before the next war or emergency.
And when the bond buyers hesitate, the market panics. Interest rates climb. The cost to borrow increases. And the only option left is the printing press. That is when inflation returns. That is when the middle class gets gutted quietly. Not by tax bills, but by grocery bills. By rent. By energy. By the slow, invisible theft of currency value.
This is the cycle. This is the pattern. It is not about fairness. It is about math.
When people say the rich should pay more, they ignore that the top already funds almost the entire machine. When they say the government does not have enough, they ignore that it already collects five trillion dollars per year. The problem is not the inputs. The problem is what happens after. The money does not disappear. It is spent. And it is spent recklessly.
Until someone pulls the brakes, the debt train keeps rolling. But there is no track left. Only cliffs.