To all senators and representatives:
We keep hearing about the pending economic catastrophe if Congress doesn’t raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, which really should be called a debt “allusion” because a “ceiling” fraudulently implies a limit that cannot be breached.
Let us suggest a different catastrophe, one that will happen if you do raise the limit: the wrath of MAD moms. MAD is the acronym for Mothers Against Debt.
You’re familiar with soccer moms and security moms. It’s time you meet MAD moms. We are several thousand strong and growing. We are moms who are sick of watching you disrespect hard-working American taxpayers with your reckless spending that enslaves our children to a nightmarish economic future of crippling debt, high unemployment, skyrocketing interest rates, outrageous tax rates and limited economic opportunities.
We are alarmed by the words of David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s former budget director, who, when it comes to our precarious fiscal fix, serves as a modern day Paul Revere. In October 2010 he warned, “The two parties are in a race to the fiscal bottom to see which one can bury our children and grandchildren deeper in debt.”
Please don’t insult our intelligence with some kind of patronizing statement about the historic, bi-partisan budget cuts that you negotiated to avoid a government “shutdown.” The $38 billion was just smoke and mirrors that amounted to little more than a few billion dollars — Congressional chump change found in the cushions of your plush couches. We’re parents; we’re experts at discerning when someone’s trying to pull a fast one on us.
Stockman throws the BS flag as well: “The giant swindle being perpetrated by Washington officialdom, then, boils down to the following pathetic truth: The U.S. government is currently borrowing 43 cents on every dollar it spends, meaning that it is issuing about $6 billion of new Treasury debt every single business day. During the balance of FY 2011, this allegedly largest spending cut in history will not eliminate one day’s worth of new national debt!”
MAD moms aren’t an army of academically trained economists or tenured professors, but we are intimately familiar with common-sense, household economics. We know that our household budgets can’t afford indefinitely to spend $1.00 when we only bring in 60 cents. Eventually friends and family will stop lending to us, and they’ll catch on to our scheme of using monopoly money to finance our debt and lavish lifestyle. The country that we love and hope to preserve for our children is no different.
Here’s what we want:
- Cut spending — all spending including education, entitlements and defense. And not the way Washington does but the way American households do.
- Balance the budget. Not using gimmicks. Only spend what you have — not one dime more.
- Stop printing money. Overworking the printing presses to finance your “stimulus,” the debt or “quantitative easing” makes our hard-earned dollars worth a whole lot less while basic needs like food, energy and fuel cost more. This makes us particularly angry; so quit it.
- Stop employing the worn-out excuse that government spending (especially deficit spending) is “for the children.” Your big government is not a family value. In fact, it is just the opposite because it robs working families of the fruits of their labor that they need to care for their children. Frankly, we don’t like you using our kids for your political gain.
We are busy working and raising families. We don’t have time to micro-manage, which is why we elected you. We’ve provided the guidelines, now you figure out the specifics.
We expect that you will take our concerns seriously. If you don’t, then you should anticipate a virtual “Million Mommy March” on Washington. We won’t rest until you are replaced with someone who will be as concerned about our children’s future as we are. Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.
On behalf of all the MAD moms and MAD fans, thank you for taking the time to read this.
Amy Oliver Cooke is the founder of Mother Against Debt.