Each month the Kansas Federalist will bring a topic of noted interest to the forefront for discussion and focus our entire edition with information about that topic. For June, TKF has chosen “The Perils of Debt”.

Debt is a tool
Myth: Debt is a tool and should be used to help create prosperity.
Truth: Debt isn't used by wealthy people nearly as much as we are led to believe.
Debt is dumb. Most normal people are just plain broke because they are in debt up to their eyeballs with no hope of help. If you're in debt, then you're a slave because you do not have the freedom to use your money to help change your family tree.

Debt Consolidation
Myth: Debt consolidation saves interest, and you have one smaller payment.
Truth: Debt consolidation is dangerous because you treat only the symptom.
Debt consolidation is nothing more than a "con" because you think you've done something about the debt problem. The debt is still there, as are the habits that caused it - you just moved it! You can't borrow your way out of debt. You can't get out of a hole by digging out the bottom.

Debt Management
Myth: The debt management companies on TV will save me.
Truth: You may get out of debt...but only with your credit trashed.
Credit Counseling Service can help you get better interest rates and lower payments, but at a price. When you use one of these companies and then try to get a Conventional, FHA, or VA loan, you will be treated the same as if you had filed Chapter 13 Bankruptcy.

The Use of Credit Cards
Myth: Aren't there positive uses of a credit card? Like rebates and airline miles?
Truth: Responsible use of a credit card does not exist. Credit card debt is a major problem in America.
There is NO positive side to credit card use. You will spend more if you use credit cards. Even by paying the bills on time, you are not beating the system! But most families don't pay on time. The average family today carries $8,000 in credit card debt according to the American Bankers' Association.

Quick Debt Help
Myth: I can get quick debt help over the phone or Internet.
Truth: True debt help is not quick or easy. It starts in the mirror with you.
Companies touting quick, pain-free fixes are really scams that cause more harm than good. These services almost never help solve the true debt management problem - one's behavior.

Only the rich can be debt free
Myth: Only the rich can be debt free.
Truth: Anyone can become debt free. True debt reduction is plain common sense and hard work.
Real debt help is not quick or easy. Laziness is a character flaw. You need to be willing to work and sacrifice in order to fix the situations that you created with your own irresponsibility. If you are not willing, then you cannot be helped.

File Bankruptcy
Myth: I'll just file bankruptcy and start over; it seems so easy.
Truth: Bankruptcy is a gut-wrenching, life-changing event that causes lifelong damage.
Bankruptcy is a living nightmare. It can devastate your job, destroy your marriage and steal your peace of mind.

Establishing a budget
Myth: I don't have time to work on a budget.
Truth: You don't have time not to make a budget!
When you see that a budget is just spending your money with intention, you'll actually experience more freedom than before.

Debt and marriage
Myth: My spouse and I shouldn't talk about money because it only leads to fights.
Truth: You can't have a great relationship until you can communicate and agree about money.
Let's face it - if we can agree on the checkbook, there would be nothing left to fight about except who gets the remote.

Consigning a loan
Myth: By cosigning a loan, I am helping a friend or relative.
Truth: Be ready to repay the loan. The bank wants a cosigner for a reason - they don't expect the friend or relative to pay. Yet people across America make the very unwise (yes, dumb) decision to cosign for someone else every day.

Debt information courtesy of Dave Ramsey of www.DaveRamsey.com

BIBLICAL DEBT

Debt according to Biblical Principals
According to Proverbs 22:7, "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave of the lender" (NRSV). I was confronted with this scripture and had to make a conscious decision of who was right - my broke finance professor, who taught that debt is a tool, or God, who showed the obvious disdain for debt. Beverly Sills had it right when she said, "There is no shortcut to any place worth going."

PUBLIC DEBT

Government Borrowing Imposes Future Risks
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/15/MNGKO32V3K1.DTL
"Borrowing imposes significant future costs,'' said Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill on Friday. "It fails to address the underlying problem the state of California is facing. Bring current law expenditures and current law revenues into line.''

The National Debt Clock is Ticking
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
The estimated population of the United States is 302,301,200?so each citizen's share of this debt is $29,094.83. The National Debt has continued to increase an averof?$1.billion per day.

Corporate Welfare Program adds to National Debt
http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb106/hb106-7.pdf
The federal government currently spends roughly $65 billion a year on programs that provide subsidies to private businesses. Virtually every corporate welfare program that existed in 1994 is still squandering taxpayer dollars today. Many have had their budgets increased. If the size and cost of the federal government are ever going to be reduced, these taxpayer rip-offs must be eliminated.

Federal Aid to the States must be strictly limited
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8246
The theory behind aid to the states is that federal policymakers can design and operate programs in the national interest to efficiently solve local problems. In practice, most federal politicians are not inclined to pursue broad, national goals; they are consumed by the competitive scramble to secure subsidies for their states. At the same time, federal aid stimulates overspending by the states, requires large bureaucracies to administer, and comes with a web of complex regulations that limit state flexibility.

Wildfires is not all that is out of control at the US Forest Service
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8226
The Forest Service's program—which consists of spending close to $300 million per year treating hazardous fuels and as much as $2 billion a year preparing for and suppressing fires—will not restore the national forests to health or end catastrophic fire in most of those forests. In many forests it may do more harm than good.

The United States of America has been established as a Federalist, Capitalistic Democracy. As a result of that foundation sound economic principles were established in order to make our beloved Country a success. The principles were for limited, but strong national government services (such as defense, treasury, security, etc), states rights, consumption taxes on goods, and for natural supply and demand markets to achieve success in driving the economy and future economies of our Country. Oh, yes, finally it was all centered on the divine providence of a higher being, God.

The Perils of Debt

Debt is out of control! The trappings of what is now perceived as a successful life is all about the pleasure. Our hunger for “the good life” as we see it, unveils a bigger picture of undisciplined behavior in humans in many other avenues as well. This undisciplined economic behavior has crossed the realm of personal, public, and yes, even moral debt.

Whether it’s Freudian in process or not, most Baby-Boomer Americans have not been good stewards of our Country. Through undisciplined behavior, we are about 75% Id based and not enough ego and super-ego in our social development has countered the pleasure of an Id based mind. (The id is responsible for our basic drives such as food, sex and aggressive impulses, and demands immediate satisfaction. It is amoral and egocentric, ruled by the pleasure-pain principle; it is without a sense of time; completely illogical; primarily sexual; infantile in its emotional development; will not take 'no' for an answer; is without verbal representation and therefore does not enter consciousness.)

In order for our Country to achieve success in the future and reframe our current social tendencies from Id reinforcement, we must take sincere steps to change our mindset. Eliminate your debt. Develop a budget to discipline yourself towards debt management. In the meantime work harder and extra to pay down your debt. Finally, we should elect members to Congress the will show the same discipline on the public side.

As someone that got caught up in the “economic id” I have a new mantra: Debt-freedom! And I am going to work very hard in the next few years to be debt-free! Talk to you kids about the perils of indebtedness and pray that they don’t develop their Id like we did. Good parenting and disciplined behavior is the key to personal freedom on all levels.

Be disciplined and change your life!

"Currie Myers is the former sheriff of Johnson County, Kansas and a former special agent and state trooper. Sheriff Myers is a noted conservative and federalist and is the editor and publisher of the “Kansas Federlalist E-Newsline.” Myers holds a PhD in criminal justice as well as an MBA and owns a security management, consulting, and training company called, “Sheriff Myers & Associates.” He can be reached via his website at www.sheriffmyers.com.

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