Pray Musk Succeeds
The alternative is default, chaos and America's eventual demise.
Psalms 106:37-38 — Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, And shed innocent blood, Even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, Whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: And the land was polluted with blood.
Last year Americans spent $841 billion on national defense. That money, purportedly, “keeps America free.” It keeps predatory nations from invading and killing our people, it keeps commercial lanes open, prevents kidnapping and ransoming of diplomats, protects students abroad, missionaries and others who must leave the safety of our borders.
In that cause America lost 98 lives... 3 in a drone attack on a military base in Jordan, and 95 due to non-hostile “risks of war footing” such as vehicular crashes and accidents with live ordinance. Every loss is tragic, and we honor military service because of this risk to life.
But there were more than 98 lives consumed in defending freedom. The $841 billion spent could pay emergency responders, build hospitals, pave safer roads or be left untaxed, and help put food on the table, pay for clothing or help cover the rent. How do we account for that sacrifice?
Since this money is ultimately derived from taxing “earnings,” one method is to calculate how many American lives will be spent earning the 2024 defense budget. The answer is 494,700. Defending America last year took the life’s work of a half million of our citizens.
The 98 individuals who we see giving their lives in our defense earn top honors. But we rarely think about the half million whose labor, from childhood to old age, can be monetized and dedicated just to maintain the Pentagon, our many military bases, our defense procurement contracts, not to mention paying the Defense Department’s 778,000 civilian employees.
We don’t think about these half million because taxes don’t consume entire lives . . . just a small portion of everyone’s life. There are no discreet “victims” of our 2024 Defense Budget whose entire life was taken. The burden was born by every taxpayer in America and by spreading it out, we notice it less.
In 2024 there was another budget item larger than national defense: the courtesy fee we are required to pay the holders of America’s IOUs . . . the interest on our national debt. It totaled $882 billion.
This payment isn’t “optional.” Without it creditors who hold the notes on our current $36.6 trillion in national debt may demand immediate payment, and the United States of America would go into default.
History tells us national default is bad. It creates chaos, devaluation of the American dollar, loss of entire life savings, potential crashing of overseas and domestic commodity and stock markets, widespread unemployment, rioting in the streets and violence.
So, to avoid this, we pay interest, equal to the lifetime earnings of 518,000 Americans, from cradle to grave, each year, completely consumed, with nothing to show for it but the right to be in debt for another year.
One in three dollars of this payment leaves the U.S. to satisfy creditors in either Japan, China, or Great Britain.
This year, 2025, that interest payment will balloon to over $1 trillion, for which we will offer up to the Moloch of international finance the lifetime earnings of over 650,000 Americans. The ancient Canaanites would have considered our “offering” barbaric.
You don’t need to know who Elon Musk is, how he created PayPal, or Tesla, or SpaceX. You don’t need to buy or use his products. You don’t need to listen to him, much less like him.
But as his current volunteer “gig” is to prevent our nation from entering a cataclysmic debt-driven death spiral, hopefully you join the majority of Americans praying for his success.
Trent Clark of Soda Springs has served in the leadership of Idaho business, politics, workforce, and humanities education.