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A chart of the US national debt since our founding is a good indicator of when wars were fought, at least through World War II. The U.S. ran deficits during wartime, which caused the debt to peak at the end of wars, and surpluses following wars, which caused the debt to shrink. In fact, a string of surpluses after the War of 1812 paid off the debt in 1835, the only time in history the debt was zero. It now stands at over $21 trillion.

It was relatively easy to run surpluses after wars ended when the bulk of federal spending was on defense, but today defense spending consumes only 20 percent of the budget while transfer payments take up 70 percent. Deficits have averaged $1 trillion since 2007 and will most likely continue, so if we completely eliminated the defense department and its $850 billion budget we would still run deficits of $150 billion!

The Democrat solution is to raise tax rates, claiming this will generate increased tax revenues. The Republican approach is to reduce tax rates, claiming this will stimulate the economy and increase tax revenues. We go back and forth between these approaches as one party gains power over the other, while spending continues to increase and outpace revenues.

The least painful approach would be to freeze all federal government spending at current levels and allow revenues to catch up over a period of years. This would be much less painful than what will eventually happen if we do nothing.

DAVE MUNDELL

Sandpoint