A home without a newspaper is no home at all. It is kind of a
dreary den where the inhabitants live in blissful ignorance of what the world is
doing. It is inhabited by a class who do not know who is president or what he is
president of--who never find out that a thing has happened until everyone else
has forgotten it.
The children grow up in rags and dirt, while the wife finds
consolation in darning socks and lugging a pipe loaded with long green tobacco
and the man lives because he can’t die, and is too lazy to kill himself. He goes
out on election day and does not know whom he is voting for, but just takes his
ticket and a drink and spoils his ballot.
Congress sent President Eisenhower, at his request, a bill which
would increase the national debt limit to $295 billion. The debt limit had been
$288 billion.
The new ceiling is temporary, but this has meant little in past
years. For example, the $288 billion ceiling would have expired and the ceiling
would have dropped to $283 billion on July 1.
Congress, instead of allowing the ceiling to go back down, was
forced to increase it. The new debt limit is the highest in the history of the
U.S. in peace time, and with interest rates what they are, and the government
using short term financing, it means that the American people will be paying
somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 billion interest annually.
We think every taxpaying citizen should consider this huge
interest burden and understand it. It means that of our approximately $70
billion budget, more than 10 percent of it, or $8 billion, must be paid out just
to carry the interest load on the billions we have borrowed, and still owe.