By Buddy McDonald

Guest Columnist 

The United States owes more than the value of what it produces.

United States government reports the Gross Domestic Product Oct. 1, 2012 through Sept. 30, 2013, was $16.66 Trillion and the amount we owed for the same period was $17.09 trillion. The United State’s national debt was 107.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product.

Our nation is in debt… it is serious. Everyone in government knows it. A very few have sought to correct this situation without success. President Obama formed a bipartisan committee to study solutions. They came up with a plan. President Obama ignored it as did the Congressional leadership, Democrat and Republican, because it reduced programs they wanted. Spending continued pushing us further into debt. Relatively small cuts were made to our spending spree. There is no Federal “balanced budget” law.

The Federal Reserve prints more dollars to lend to the government to pay interest on national debt. The more dollars there are in circulation the lower the value of each dollar. Food, gas, electricity and other consumer items have risen in price because the dollar has been devalued to pay interest on the debt. To see how much prices for food, fuel and other items have risen since 2008, see http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/jun/01/scorecard-economy-obama/

Charles Kedlec, a contributor to Forbes Magazine, stated in 2012, “The power to print money at will… has corrupted our system of government. First, by financing growing government deficits with newly created money, it has removed the ability … to check the growth of government. Even worse, the combination since December 2008 of zero percent interest ratesand an 8% increase in the price level represents an unaccounted for partial default on the federal government’s then $10 trillion debt. In effect, the government has stolen $800 billion from the holders of its debt. On today’s $15 trillion federal debt, the theft, and injustice, is even greater.”

The theft and injustice on the poor and the middle class in the United States is much worse. The dollars buy less for them and prices for basic items go up. The poor do not have extra income with which to pay the increases so they purchase less. Therefore food stamps are given wide distribution for two reasons: Democrats want wide spread food stamps to hide the burden of the devalued dollar from the poor. Some Republicans support food stamps because there is another group of beneficiaries in the food stamp program: corporate farmers, corporate food producers, corporate food processors and grocery store chains which make more revenue with a widespread food stamp program.

The middle class has no program to assist them and while they are not seeing raises in pay or reductions in taxes, nor are they eligible for food stamps

, they feel the full burden of the increase in prices.

The truly rich are not affected greatly by the devaluation of the dollar as they have greater disposable income.

The self-proclaimed champions of the poor and middle class, the Democrats, add to the burden of those who are not rich.