WASHINGTON — The billionaire advisors to President-elect Donald Trump may feel that cutting the spending of the federal government would solve America’s fiscal problem. Godspeed.

However, America’s true cancer is the low workforce participation rate. We may claim that the unemployment number is around 4 percent but in reality 38% of Americans are not factored into the participation rate. It should also be noted that if you stop looking for a job, you are not even counted in that 4% “unemployment” number.

Doing away with efforts to employ folks who make up the 38% is plain stupid.

We need more people paying into the system (per tax revenue) than receiving dollars from the system (per social services entitlements).

America will soon no longer be a majority white nation. Thus, we cannot have a “Leave it to Beaver” (a TV show from the 1950s) America when white people will no longer make up the majority of Americans. Not giving Black and Brown people good opportunities back then did not make much difference to the overall economy. Today it does.

When President Richard Nixon had his Assistant Secretary of Labor Arthur Fletcher draw up a plan that has been coined Affirmative Action, the goal was to give more Americans the opportunity to participate in the American dream by getting an elite education and landing a job with a Fortune 500 company. Another goal was to make it easier for Americans to open their own businesses as a supplier of goods and services to corporations or the government. The federal government monitored their efforts.

Even if nearly every white person were able to go to elite schools, get six-figure starting salaries and land all the contracts and subcontracts from companies receiving federal dollars, it would still leave America with a low workforce participation level. Why? Because it would potentially leave out most Americans because we are not living in the 1950s when America was overwhelmingly white.

It is very clear that the Trump administration’s billionaires want to eliminate the Fletcher plan which became an executive order. I encourage Trump to keep it unless he can come up with other ways of measuring the progress of opportunities being offered to all Americans. No one wants anyone who is not qualified or capable, but everyone should have an opportunity to succeed. The only way we know if this is happening is by looking at the records, the numerical facts. Proof is in the numbers.

America in the ’60s, when it was overwhelmingly a white nation, had a 88% workforce participation rate for men. Today, that number has dropped to 62%. We must have ways to get all Americans, even those of color, into the pipeline toward the promise of America.

This represents a huge loss in tax revenue. Even a modest improvement in the workforce participation rate would translate into a significant amount of federal dollars that would not need to be spent to help sustain those in need of entitlements. A disproportionate number of these folks are Black and Brown people, though most people on welfare are white.

If all good paying jobs were reserved just for white people – like during Apartheid in South Africa (we know how that turned out) – then we would need to, yes, annex Canada and maybe Greenland. Otherwise, the math does not work.

Raising taxes is always an option but not a good one. Increasing taxes would merely punish the middle class, a group that is already overtaxed.

The government presently has just 15% of its entire budget that is not already committed. You cannot touch Social Security or Medicare. Both were commitments made to folks when they were young and are benefits expected as they age. If those accounts, which were supposed to be in a “locked box” trust, were not raided over the decades we would not be facing some of the challenges we currently have.

More importantly, hardworking Americans paid into the Social Security and Medicare systems, many from the age of 16. You cannot “rob” them of “their” money. Neither system was a government “handout.” Senior citizens have earned it.

Then there is defense spending. We are always going to want the best means of protecting ourselves from our foes. Some savings can be realized here but nothing significant.

Then you have the interest payments due on our $36 trillion national debt. Failing to honor this commitment would result in unknown but catastrophic consequences.

So, now, from the dollar in tax revenue, we are left with $.15 that can be cut per government spending.

On the other hand, if we have more Americans working, we have more tax revenue, we have less government payments going out the door, we would not have annual deficits adding to our national debt, and it would improve the lives of millions of Americans who want to participate in the American Dream.

We spend around a whopping $1 trillion a year of our over $6 trillion total budget just on healthcare for the poor (Medicaid). Then you have to add in the following: food stamps, housing, and other welfare benefits for the indigent. A similar quagmire contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire.

This financial stress for individuals is why Trump was elected. We have the poor and those who are struggling not to be poor. The stress is the driving force behind the increase in healthcare and the decline in the mental health of Americans. Far too many of us are committing suicide or performing mass murders (the vast majority being white people).

Trump must realize why he was elected. It is the economy “stupid” … and the nation’s economy is being determined more and more by the fate of people of color.

Thus, cutting back on their opportunities to participate in the workforce is not wise. It is economically unsustainable, making a bad situation worse for all Americans.