“Forty years to the week (May, 1973) of the Senate hearings of the Nixon administration’s Watergate scandal, we have Benghazi Gate, IRS Gate and the Associated Press Gate all converging in the second term of President Obama,” noted Bentley. “But in the midst of the present day drama with both sides entrenched in a battle to discredit the other party, a bigger scandal is underway right under our noses — perpetual runaway federal spending. We are now a people governed by profligate spenders.” The nation’s greatest scandal: Profli-Gate.
Bentley wrote: “Profligate means utterly shameless, reckless, extravagant spending and waste. Our tax dollars fall short of the annual expenses of the federal government by almost 1/3rd or more year after year. We have overspent our national income every year since World War II except for eight. Worse, the money that is borrowed is consumed on inefficient, bureaucratic programs that accomplish little but pile up debt seemingly impossible to be repaid.
“This scandal shows no favoritism. It holds the potential to deliver the most devastating consequences to all Americans – those that receive government income and those that do not. This scandal is not a judgment call based upon personal ethics. It is a mathematical fact measured by the gap between our nation’s income and expenses. It is measured in trillions of dollars and growing.
“By attempting to borrow our way out of a debt problem, we are attempting to put out the fire with gasoline.
“Forty years ago we were the largest lending nation on Earth, today we are the largest debtor nation on Earth. We lost our basis for common ethics and our prosperity will surely follow. Proverbs 22:7 warns: ‘The borrower is servant to the lender.'”
This kind of debt spending is a matter of character â individual character that must be revived, across the country (including in Washington, D.C. Chuck Bentley is CEO of Crown, a nonprofit business and personal finance policy and educational organization, and best-selling author of “The S.A.L.T. Plan: How to Prepare for an Economic Crisis of Biblical Proportions” as well host of the nationally syndicated radio feature, My MoneyLifeâ¢, follow him, @chuckbentley. For more information, go to www.crown.org. For interviews, e-mail: media@crown.org.