opm

OPM stands for Other People’s Money, and it is a slang term that references financial leverage or borrowed capital. Donald Trump is intimately familiar with the concept as he has declared bankruptcy six times, but never personal bankruptcy. He likes other people’s money. He is not alone in this, as our elected officials seem eager to spend OPM like a sailor on leave.

In a quote from the 1987 movie Wall Street, they state, “Money’s only something you need in case you don’t die tomorrow." The concept of spending OPM is a recurring theme in various movies as it highlights the allure of power, or the consequences of unethical behavior. Our politicians (both sides) spend our tax dollars and money we don’t yet have, in order to get reelected and maintain power so they may access some of that largess to benefit them at a more personal level.

The United States of America was founded in debt to the tune of $75.46 million following the American Revolutionary War in 1791. We paid it down to zero by 1835, under the direction of the man on our twenty dollar bill, Andrew Jackson. By 1836, however, we were back at spending more than we took in. By May of 2025, that debt was pegged at $36.2 trillion.

Promises by politicians that they will reduce the national debt, reduce your taxes, protect social safety nets, while spending more on national security, are as empty as a frat party beer keg the morning after. Republican promises that they are doing all these things in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (BBB), smell like something the stable genius stepped in coming out of his stable.

It is no wonder that House Republicans who passed this Big Beautiful Bill are now having second thoughts declaring that they didn’t have time to read its thousand plus pages. They certainly knew the bill extended the 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy, cut Medicare, and increased the national debt $2.4 trillion or more. Even I knew that and I’m not being paid to serve any constituents.

The fact of the matter is that Americans enjoy the lowest taxes of any nation in the developed world. Taxes at all levels of government represent 25% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2023, compared with an average of 34% for 37 developed nations. I’m sure many of you have known people who lived off of credit cards, paid the monthly minimum, and eventually went bankrupt. If you looked in the mirror this morning, you were looking at one more headed for a financial reckoning. Yes, you and 347.2 million of your closest friends.

As of June 3, 2025, the US public debt per capita was $106,000. The per person debt has increased 5% per year since 2001. The US domestic financial system owns 70% of the debt while the remainder is held by foreign entities.

Elon Musk, who now decries the BBB as waste, and his hand-picked DOGE boys, didn’t make a dent in the debt and probably cost us more than they saved. Certainly, the losses in medical research where ongoing projects were scrapped and lost, have a value that will be difficult to measure. By one estimate, the DOGE claim of saving $160 billion ended up costing taxpayers $135 billion.

For those looking for their president to use his business experience to reduce the debt and save us from financial ruin, look no further than his Big Beautiful Bill. He is only interested in lowering the tax burden of his fellow financial travelers by shifting that burden to the lower tax tiers. He is also looking to finance some of this extension of his “tax cuts” by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal safety net programs that mean nothing to his fellow billionaires. He is happy spending OPM to get him his “deals” for golf courses, hotels, clubs, real estate, and bitcoin. He didn’t bankrupt six enterprises while maintaining personal solvency without knowing how to use OPM.