Good Morning Middle America, Your King of Simple News, is once more on the air.

The big news stories the last couple of days report that Americans are now more worried about the economy than the Iraq war. Wow, what a revelation!

For those who have read my book and follow this blog, you can probably spell economy backwards by now. I have a terrible time getting what I believe (and my regular readers believe) to be the most important subject in the world, to the front of the masses minds.

“Without a sustainable underlying economy, nothing else matters.”

So, I’ll focus on a few more ways to drive that point home. The government is nothing more that a pass-through agency. They collect revenues from many sources, pay out the cost of government including all social programs, and put the negative balance on account. That negative account is called the National Debt.

The amount that the government pays out each month is budgeted at the beginning of the year. This is similar to an individual’s monthly budget such as groceries, house payments, rents, utilities, and so on. The difference is that individuals have to balance their accounts, or eventually, they will go bankrupt. The U.S went bankrupt years ago, but that’s another article.

Let’s then say that the individual loses his or her job, or better yet, his AND her job, for an extended period of time. (Pretend that his and her are a carpenter and a mortgage lender in Florida). The monthly costs go on and the bills come in, but there is no income to send back out. About a month later, that thing that I mentioned about bankruptcy is now a reality. Reality sucks doesn’t it?

But what else happens? Sure, the government isn’t collecting taxes from the now jobless taxpayers. And, not only is collecting taxes the governments main job, it’s their only source of income. You see, the government doesn’t produce income, they take income. So in a sense, the government just lost their job also.

The income to government is now seriously reduced, but the outflow part of government expenditures gains momentum due to the necessity of providing jobless benefits and welfare to the now unemployed former tax payer. The amount being transferred to government debt becomes greater and greater as the economy weakens.

Now what if the economy were to weaken just as 78,000,000 of the former tax paying citizens were lining up at the collection window rather than the tax paying window? We are about to find out. The first baby-boomer will be eligible for Social Security on January 1, 2008. Yes, next week.

But not to worry, the funded and unfunded debt is only $50 Trillion. We can simply raise taxes on the kids and everything will be A-OK. And, at the same time, why don’t we throw in free health care and free college for one and all? These kids are goners anyway, and after all, what did we raise them for if not to pay our debts?

So what do you think about the importance of the economy now?