Weekly Update: 08/08/2021

Hopefully you’ve already seen the Christmas In July post.  Please send me your ideas!

Public Service Announcements

This Week

Monday: A new slug of Port Package home owners have come on the radar.

Tuesday: Port Of Seattle Commission Meeting (Agenda). Coincidentally, the Port will be giving an update on their Accelerated Port Package program from last February. The good news is that the Port is finally providing sound insulation to hundreds of untreated apartments in Des Moines–including several along Kent Des Moines Road. The bad news is that they have backtracked on their intent to provide updates per State Law HB2315 to existing homes that have experienced a range of problems–including structural damage.

Wednesday: Friends Of Saltwater Park meeting to discuss their long term plans. FOSP have become an important partner in monitoring the health of McSorley Creek and Puget Sound and we should support their efforts.

Thursday: Meeting (again) with Adam Smith’s office on federal grants for airport communities. This is one of this little ‘details’ that our City should be working on. Currently there is no FAA funding available directly to a city like Des Moines–you always have to go through the owner of the airport–which is the Port. That’s what makes it so hard for us to get any funding for studies or relief.

Friday: Several meetings with local groups on parks. I’ve received dozens of great suggestions for ARPA funding, but these are the first I’ve heard concerning parks–which is near and dear to my heart.

Last Week

Tuesday: Adam Smith. I keep pitching our the SeatacNoise.Info Remote Works Better proposal. Anything that gets any department or organization thinking about Zoom instead of getting on an unnecessary flight is worth doing. 🙂

Thursday: The Budget Retreat City Council Meeting (Agenda) (Video) This is the meeting that kicks off the only State-mandated process of a City Council: passing a budget. For decades that basically was the only function of most small town City Councils. There was a department by department presentation and there were many questions. Too much to include here. More soon…

Debt, Freedom, Vaccines and Stimulus…

Councilmembers routinely get anonymous emails advocating for some issue–often using hyperbolic language. I got one this week saying “Vaccine Mandates Are Slavery!”

To which I reply: No, dude. Slavery is slavery.

But OK, being told you have no choice to get a vaccine is, to some degree, a loss of freedom. I’m not trying to minimize people’s feelings on this.

Now: wanna know what else is not freedom? Crushing debt. Just ask anyone on the 2016 City Council. Owe enough money and you no longer get to choose anything. Debt can take away everything, including your City.

So I want to throw something out there about debt and the Pandemic and Stimulus. Aside from the deaths and illness, the damage COVID-19 has done in terms of lives, jobs, businesses, homes is historic. And that damage will not stop until everyone is vaccinated. And the kicker? Almost 100% of the suffering now is completely unnecessary. Every month people do not get vaccinated adds billions of dollars of long term debt and keeps millions of citizens in a state of constant anxiety. That is not freedom.

No matter how fast we ‘recover’, that debt has no reasonable expectation of being addressed in our lifetimes. We are simply moving those trillions of dollars of debt (and anxiety) onto future generations.

So any stimulus money the City Of Des Moines receives should not be thought of as Christmas In July… which I meant sarcastically. Rather, this $9M should be thought of more like a ginormous pay day loan that our grandchildren will be stuck with.

The last twenty years of federal debt

In 2000, the federal debt was $5.6 trillion. It is now over $26 trillion. And after this year’s ‘stimuli’ it will surely blow past $30 trillion.

Cumulative Federal Debt 2000 – 2020

Date Dollar Amount
09/30/2020 26,945,391,194,615.15
09/30/2019 22,719,401,753,433.78
09/30/2018 21,516,058,183,180.23
09/30/2017 20,244,900,016,053.51
09/30/2016 19,573,444,713,936.79
09/30/2015 18,150,617,666,484.33
09/30/2014 17,824,071,380,733.82
09/30/2013 16,738,183,526,697.32
09/30/2012 16,066,241,407,385.89
09/30/2011 14,790,340,328,557.15
09/30/2010 13,561,623,030,891.79
09/30/2009 11,909,829,003,511.75
09/30/2008 10,024,724,896,912.49
09/30/2007 9,007,653,372,262.48
09/30/2006 8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2005 7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2003 6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 6,228,235,965,597.16
09/30/2001 5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 5,674,178,209,886.86

Many economists don’t worry about short term deficits. But no one can ignore such a vast amount of structural debt indefinitely.  Sooner or later the rent comes due. Just as it did for the City Of Des Moines five years ago.

Our grandchildren…

Future generations will rightly ask why we allowed the pandemic to drag on needlessly. They will wonder how the hell we could increase the national debt 600% in 20 years—and what we really got in return for all that spending. And my guess is that their resentment will be profound.

I know all that may seem high falutin’. People are suffering now. They want relief now. But I ran for office with the slogan, “I’ve lived here 25 years. And I want to make Des Moines even better for the next 25 years.” So the long term is also on my mind as I think about how we should spend our $9M share of stimulus money. The staggering amount of debt we are foisting on future generations obligates us to consider doing something really important with that check–for the future of Des Moines.

Comments

  1. Thank you SO MUCH for that piece on DEBT it ia an urgent matter We need to share that information with everyone !! kaylene

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