Ken’s Take: Next to the government just flat out wasting money, my worry is the burgeoning debt. Some debt – ok. But, staggering levels not ok.
When I ask students why they’re unfazed, they admit that the sums are so large that “it’s more like Monopoly money” or”payback is so far off that’s it’s not worth worrying about”.
Somebody is eventually going to have to pay the piper …
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Excerpted from IBD, “Why No Focus On Huge Ongoing Debt?”,
May 15, 2009
Since 1961 the federal budget has run deficits in all but five years. But the resulting government debt has consistently remained below 50% of GDP; that’s the equivalent of a household with $100,000 of income having a $50,000 debt. Adverse economic effects, if any, were modest.
From 2010 to 2019, Team Obama projects deficits totaling $7.1 trillion; that’s atop the $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009.
By 2019, the ratio of publicly held federal debt to gross domestic product (GDP, or the economy) would reach 70%, up from 41% in 2008.
The CBO, using less optimistic economic forecasts, raises these estimates. The 2010-19 deficits would total $9.3 trillion; the debt-to-GDP ratio in 2019 would be 82%.
By CBO’s estimates, interest on the debt as a share of federal spending will double between 2008 and 2019, from 8% of the total to 16%.
One reason Obama is so popular is that he has promised almost everyone lower taxes and higher spending. The president doesn’t want to confront Americans with choices between lower spending and higher taxes — or, given the existing deficits, perhaps less spending and more taxes.
Closing future deficits with either tax increases or spending cuts would require gigantic changes.
Full article:
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=327285979616580
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May 19, 2009 at 11:26 am |
Hey, I know a way we could have saved $1T in national debt! It also would have saved the lives of 3,444 U.S. soldiers and 1,331,578 Iraqis. And it would have made us safer, to boot, by quelling anti-Americanism and allowing us to focus on al qaida.
I don’t mind a good debate about whether we’re spending the right amounts on the right things, but Republicans suddenly screaming about deficits must have been deep asleep on an Adirondack mountaintop for the last eight years while Bush lowered taxes and raised spending.
Where was this concern when your own party was running up the tab? So the money we spent blowing up villages and creating new enemies was okay, but giving it to Amtrak is the height of folly?
May 22, 2009 at 12:13 am |
Davenport,
I see you in a cabinet role in this administration (read: incompetent). You are able to point at unrelated problems caused by previous politicians to deflect any responsibility instead of answer to the current issues. This is one of the current administration’s “best” tactics. The campaign is over…time to start doing and stop pointing fingers.