Only 9 percent in the country approve of the job Congress is doing and 80 percent do not like the direction their country is going.

This disapproval stems from the same fact: That we Americans have grown a government today that has a $3.1 trillion federal budget, 60 percent or $1.8 trillion of which is earmarked for social and corporate welfare programs. We Americans have let our government assume an enormous amount of responsibility for our lives.

Today most everyone immediately turns to government to pay for things they have trouble paying for themselves. So the vast number of Americans who disapprove of Congress do so because it has not done what they have expected it to do.

My disapproval with Congress stems as well from what I expected it to do. I expected Congress to have conformed to the standard of frugality, which our Founders preached as necessary if a free government and the blessings of liberty are to be preserved. But Congress has not. I expected Congress to heed their unanimous warning “to never accumulate debt – but pay it off quickly if you do.” But Congress has failed to act on behalf of this standard. As a consequence, our wonderful country is now awash in so much debt it’s about to sink us.

Because of the fundamentally flawed debt and dependency-creating Social Security Act of 1935, our government today has something like $57 trillion of unfunded debt obligations on its hands. And since we are the government, that obligation is on us. This comes at a time when the ratio of security providing workers to recipient dependent retirees is soon to be so small that the workers will only be able to provide those retired a bare fraction of what they had been receiving.

Had the fundamentally flawed Social Security Act of 1935 been privatized by Congress in the 1950s, when the ratio of workers to retirees was around 15 to 1, we would not have one cent of Social Security debt on our hands. There would be no ratio problem and the amount we received from our investment accounts would have been significantly larger.

For the past 50 years our federal government has had a near string of budget deficits. And every year, to make up the difference so that every social and corporate welfare program will receive the full amount budgeted, our government has always done two things: It borrows money and it prints money.

This nation has accumulated a $9.4 trillion debt – with $480 billion estimated to be added at the end of this year. What about the interest charges the American taxpayer has had to pay all these years?

Take this year. Let’s say 3 percent, a conservative estimate. That’s $282 billion that must be taken and given to the lenders from the taxes we pay in order to keep our currency solvent. So thanks a lot, Congress, for letting our government borrow and borrow and keep putting this yearly and ever larger expense and debt not only on the backs of the taxpayers, but on their children and likely their children as well.

Thanks too for continuing to let our government print money when there is not enough tax revenue to pay for what our government has budgeted. Printing money causes prices to rise and the value of the money to pay the price to go down. Far different than today, back in the 1950s one wage earner could make enough to buy a house and raise a family.

I petition Maine’s senators to pass a law, with enforcement and violation penalty provisions, that prohibits our federal government from borrowing money. For the same frugal reason, I petition the senators to pass a law that prohibits our federal government from printing money.

I petition them to pass a law that requires our national debt be reduced by $200 billion each and every year, so that after 50 years of paydown, our debt will finally be paid off and the shame of saddling future generations with our extravagance will finally be over.

Because our government has assumed more and more responsibility for our lives, this has given us less and less reason and need to save and invest to pay for those responsibilities ourselves. Due to this, the savings rate in American households has fallen to an all time historic low. And no longer is there enough capital for businesses to draw from, capital which business must have to grow, prosper and make jobs. Accordingly, I petition the senators to argue for passage of a mandatory personal savings-capital formation law with the $500 billion needed each year to be taken out of everyone’s wages or earnings during everyone’s working years.

Lastly, since our Congress during the past 70 years has passed laws which have brought us to the brink of economic disaster, I petition the senators to pass a term limit law: two terms for senators and three terms for representatives.

Richard K. Dimond lives in Northfield.