FEDERAL DEBT

Think About It
Do you know what the Federal debt is today? It is 8 trillion, 995 billion, 017 million and some odd dollars. To those of you who don’t remember, a trillion is equal to a million times a million. Then multiply this by 8.5 and you have our obligation. Your personal share is $29,678 and some odd cents. For a family of 4, their combined debt is probably more than their home mortgage. The Federal government raised the debt limit to $9 trillion on March 16 of this year and when it approaches that limit, they will raise it to $10 trillion, with no real plans to pay it back.

Sure, we owe some of it to our own richest citizens, who consider U.S. bonds the safest investment you can make. But estimates are that foreign interests now own about 45%, or nearly half of our government debt. They also own 13% of our corporate stocks, and 27% of our corporate bonds. America is selling itself out.

Too many candidates on both sides of the aisle now tend to believe they can best get elected by promising voters “something more from government.” We should remember that we are the government. We cannot give ourselves something for one pocket that is not paid for out of the other pocket, with a few dollars lost forever in the transaction. We should be looking for candidates who promise to give us less government.

Deficit and debt are two entirely different things. When the Federal government talks about surpluses and deficits, they are only talking about whether the current budget expenditures will be more or less than all the taxes collected for it this year, disregarding all debt. In 1980, the total Federal debt was less than $1 trillion. In the 1990’s, $2.8 trillion of new debt was added, more than the total debt from 1776 until that time. In the last 4 years, another $2.3 trillion has been added. Neither political party has really addressed trying to reduce it.

The U. S. was born in debt due to the Revolutionary War, leading to a debt of $75 million by 1791. Then it began to reduce until actually reaching zero in 1834, but never again. Hail to President Andrew Jackson! After World War I, debt was “only” $22 billion. It went down during the roaring 20’s, but the skyrocket began with the 1929 depression. FDR brought in the New Deal, and he hired a lot of men for government make-work jobs, trying to end the depression. Yes, I am from the south, and I know some might have starved without the work! But the inflationary trend was set in stone, and still it was only the next War which really brought us out of the depression. After World War II, the debt was $260 billion. It had increased nearly 16 fold from 1930 to 1950, a far greater multiplier than any other single 20 year period in our history. But regretfully, since 1980, it has multiplied another 9 fold.

Your primary concern should be this. In the mid 70’s, the debt interest expense alone amounted to 11% of annual budget expense. In FY 2006, the debt interest expense alone is 18.7% of budget expense, third in size behind only military and health care costs. It is steadily heading toward being the number one budget expense. The way the system works is this. If 300 million people raise enough fuss enough times about it, the debt will get reduced. I am one, how about you?