There are two ways to conquor and enslave a nation.  One is by the sword.  The other is by debt.
                             --  John Adams

           Unpublished letter-to-the-editor by vice-presidential candidate W. Dean Wat-kins, written 14 September 1999 and up-dated by the author on….
I’m tired of hearing, “The economy is good.”  The media is mis-informed.  The economy is not good.  Actually, it stinks!  In 1865, due to the costs incurred in the Civil War, one person’s share of the national debt was $75.  By 1910, it had been reduced to $12 per person, and this without a personal income tax. 
            Expenditures for WWI caused this to rise to a phenomenal $228 per person.  By 1930, it was reduced to $132 per person, but government funding of social programs which fought the Great Depression increased it to $325 per person (or 43% of the Gross Domestic Product).  WWII increased the debt so that, in 1950, it was $1688 per person (89% of … GDP).  Some relief was obtained until the Viet Nam War.  In 1970, the debt had increased slightly, to $1811 per person.  The debt per person has [since] steadily increased, from $4013 in 1980, to $7613 in 1985, to $13,106 in 1990, and to $19,192 in 1996.  The national debt is [now] 68% of … GDP, the worst it has been since 1950.  This means that the average American family of four would be required to pay $76,768 just for their share of the national debt.
            The Republicans, with the help of the Democrats, have sold us a bowl of pot-tage is the highly touted tax reduction.  How about reducing pork?  How about oper- ating on a balanced budget, with a large portion [of it] dedicated to reducing the public debt?  How about zinging the “fat cats” who have avoided paying their proportional share of the debt?
            After the debt has been erased, how about doing away with the personal income tax?  What…[!]  No IRS?

     “A democracy is always temporary in nature, it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.  From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”
—Alexander Tyler (historian at the University of Edinborough)

     The average age of the world's greatest civilizations, from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations have always progressed through the following sequence:
          + From bondage to spiritual faith
          + From spiritual faith to great courage
          + from courage to liberty
          + from liberty to abundance
          + from abundance to complacency
          + from complacency to apathy
          + from apathy to dependence
          + from dependence back to bondage  
                           — source unknown

“The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered, and assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest we become bankrupt.”—Roman emperor Cicero, speaking in 63 BCE.

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