I usually like to write introspective essays that deal with emotions or sociology, but recently I have heard so much about politics, that I felt like weighing in on one aspect that controls our country. Most political conversations right now have to do with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and which person would make a “better” president. Everyone has an opinion, and it’s hard to say which opinion is correct right now. Somehow we have accepted this two party system, and have sat back and watched as money controls the very elections for which we vote. So, instead of discussing the presidency and the candidates, I would rather share my views on the deficit and the reasons I believe we can never get out of debt.

First of all, our currency is actually backed by no real value, it is only backed by our trust and cooperation. When we were on the gold standard, our money could be traded in for gold, giving it a solid value. Now our currency is referred to as “legal tender for debts,” meaning that our currency is just a paper form of debt. One major factor for why the United States wanted to break free from Great Britain was because we didn’t want to be controlled by a private central bank. But in 1913 the wealthiest bankers and businessmen created a new version of the Central Bank of England. Even though it is actually a privately owned bank, they disguised it as a government program by simply naming it The Federal Reserve.

To break down why our money loses value every year and why the national deficit increases so much each year, we have to consider how the money gets printed and put into circulation. The same way that banks loan money to individuals, the government borrows money from the Federal Reserve, and with that money comes high interest rates. When it comes time to pay back these loans the government literally has to borrow more money from the Federal Reserve, causing them to print more money, devaluing the currency in circulation. Since the Federal Reserve is the main source for the money we have in circulation, and they print money any time the United States needs it (or needs to pay back the loans), our money will continue to be devalued at an exponential rate.

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of all of this is the interest, and where the money comes from to pay for the interest. The Federal Reserve and the government realized that borrowing money with interest, that can only be paid back by borrowing more money creates a perpetual cycle. The money to pay for the interest has to come from somewhere else, even though the idea that it could ever be fully paid off is far-fetched. That is why we have the incredibly unconstitutional Federal Income Tax. Approximately 25% of your money that you give to federal income tax each paycheck is mostly being used simply to help pay off the interest on the money the government borrowed. So three months out of the year you work for free to help pay off a debt that you didn’t borrow. It feels very much so like a form of economic slavery when it is broken down into plain English.

This is a topic that an expert could write a book about, and I am only scratching the surface of the parts that can be explained easily. The Federal Reserve has helped devalue our currency in order to keep the banks wealthy and to constantly collect money. Every year the deficit rises exponentially, and both sides of our two party system argue and blame the other side. But the truth is until we fix the broken system that prints our money. We will never be free from the debt. So next time you get a paycheck, and you see how much money you “donated” to Federal Income Tax, remember how many months out of the year you work to repay someone else’s debt.