Five ugly truths Americans must face

2) Our military is going to weaken. By historical standards, the United States is not spending an extraordinary percentage of our budget on defense. However, we are spending an extraordinary amount of money on defense for a nation that’s flat broke. Is this sustainable? Is China going to keep loaning us the money we need to keep our military going when it’s the only thing standing between them and Taiwan? Are Americans going to keep spending billions to defend foreign countries that are ungrateful for our help when we don’t have enough money at home? The answer to that question is, “No, we’re not.” That’s a shame — because the United States military is doing more to promote world stability than any other 20 nations combined, but we simply can’t afford to keep it up. We’ll be forced to cross our fingers, cut back on military spending, and hope that the world doesn’t completely fall to pieces when the sheriff hangs up his guns.

3) Taxes are going up. Ronald Reagan was right when he said that, “The problem is not that people are taxed too little; the problem is that government spends too much.” Unfortunately, we’ve allowed our government to spend so far beyond its means for so long that it’s going to be almost impossible to close the gap by merely cutting spending. Taxes must go up on the rich, the middle-class, and, yes, even the poor. The whole idea that more than 40% of the population can avoid paying any income taxes at all when we’re running trillion dollar deficits is sheer madness. Everybody is going to end up having to pay more — and sickeningly, it won’t even be for more services; it’ll simply be to pay for what we’ve already spent.