You've watched Washington spend the last 50 years buying votes.

Every year, it promised more, mostly in retirement and medical benefits. But… the government never paid for this largesse. It simply borrowed more and more.

Remember the debt ceiling? All a lie.

Fifty years ago, in 1976, the federal government spent $372 billion. In the fiscal year that ended on September 30, it spent $7.4 trillion: 20 times more. Even after inflation, Washington spends three times more than it did when Gerald Ford was president.

Has your life gotten 3x better? Or only 3x more expensive?

In 1976, the public held $477 billion of federal debt, equal to about 27% of the economy. Today, the public holds $32.8 trillion of federal debt: 69 times as much, and more than the entire output of the U.S. economy over the past year.

Who will pay for all this debt? Not the average voter.

In 2022 (the latest year of available data), the top 20% of households paid 88% of all federal income taxes. Said another way, about 20% of America pays for virtually all of government.

And here's the worst part: the bottom 40% paid less than nothing. "Refundable tax credits" are checks the IRS mails to people whose credits exceed the tax they owe. In 2022, the IRS gave the poorest fifth of households an average income tax rate of minus 10%.

And that's only part of the problem.

The real problem is the enormous entitlements that have been promised to seniors. In total, federal, state, and local governments are paying individuals $5.1 trillion a year in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other benefits. Meanwhile, the entire federal income tax raised $2.84 trillion in fiscal 2026.

You might notice that our deficit (~$2 trillion) is more or less the difference between those two numbers. That's because our federal government has slowly become an enormous socialist redistribution scheme. In fact, in 2022, 53% of counties in the United States got at least 25% of their personal income from government transfers. In other words, in more than half of the counties in the nation, the federal government is the largest individual source of income. That share was 10% in 2000, and under 1% in 1970.