The National Debt

Posted by Robert Williams on May 26, 2011 in Telegram Past News

As many people know, the debt of the United States is huge.  This not to be confused with the national deficit.  While the deficit is how much the federal government borrows each year, our debt is the total accumulated amount borrowed by the federal government.  The deficit has been huge in recent years and the combined amount has led to the huge debt that we have now.  This debt is over 14 trillion dollars and continues to increase by the second.

There are many debt clocks that are available on the Internet for the public to view.  The debt clock with the most information available is definitely http://www.usdebtclock.org/. This clock accurately shows the national debt while also showing the factors of it and many other miscellaneous information.  This clock even shows the amount each person in the United States would have to pay in order to pay off the national debt.  At this time, this is over $177,000 per person.

Where is all this money going?  Much of it belongs to foreign nations, like China and Japan.  47% of the national debt is owned by foreign nations.  That is trillions of dollars that we owe to foreign nations, some of which must be payed back each year.  This is a huge jump from 1988, as only 13% of the debt was owned by foreign governments.  The rest of our debt is owned publicly through notes, bills, and bonds which are held by many types of people, businesses, etc.

The money that the federal government makes through taxation is not enough to cover all the the money spent on programs such as Social Security and Medicare.  Thus the debt keeps piling up and there is no relief in sight. After just 2 years, Obama has already made a deficit almost as large as past presidents have in 4 years.

Something needs to be done or future generations will be given a debt that they will not be able to pay off.  However any party that tries to get rid of programs like social security will for sure, not be re-elected.  Compromise needs to be done before this economic crisis becomes too out of hand.