Each of you, your spouses, children and friends owe $38,974.34 to the national debt, before interest according to CBS.
It’s another record-high for the U.S. National Debt which today topped the $12-trillion mark. Divided evenly among the U.S. population, it amounts to $38,974.34 for every man, woman and child…
The exact calculation of the debt is a 16-digit tongue-twister and red-ink tsunami: $12,031,299,186,290.07
This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is not unexpected, considering the federal deficit for the just-ended 2009 fiscal year hit an all-time high at $1.42-trillion – more than triple the previous year’s record high.
And the really scary part is that that’s the good news:
But the White House budget review issued in August projects that by the end of the current fiscal year on Sept 30th, the National Debt could top $14 trillion.
It gets worse. The same document projects that by the end of the decade, the National Debt will hit $24.5 trillion — exceeding the Gross Domestic Product projected for 2019 of $22.8 trillion…
The debt also costs a fortune to maintain. In the fiscal year just ended, the National Debt cost taxpayers over $383 billion. And that amount means the government is only paying 3.3 percent interest. If interest rates go up, so does the amount paid on the debt.
CBS cannot help but note that the debt rose more under George W. Bush’s 8 years in office than it has in Barack Obama’s 10 months – $4.9 trillion vs $1.6 trillion, which at a monthly burn rate is $51 billion vs $160 billion, respectively.
Thankfully, the president has a plan to get us out of this mess:
Mr. Obama has said he hopes the health care plan pending in Congress will serve to curb the growth in the debt by reducing the amount government spends on health care.
Sure, that could happen.
We’re in the very best of hands.
Top people in their fields.
Top People.
Sure…….
Sigh.
Can I just pay this as a 1 time only fee? I’d save a ton in taxes that way……
I agree. The fiscally runious policies of the Bush administration have led us into this sinkhole of debt. It seems Republicans could never understand what any housewife or businessman understands without difficulty: If you constantly reduce your income, and at the same time constantly increase your spending, you’re going to go into debt. Like, duh. I guess that’s news for conservatives.
Also, thanks for TARP! And 200 billion to AIG!
Obama inherited this mess, which was created by Republicans.
With the key difference being that “income” for the government is “expense” for the people that it supposedly serves. For a family, the ideal solution would be to increase the income so as to allow for increased spending for needs and luxuries. With government, the ideal solution depends upon your end goal. If your interest is what is best for the government, then the solution is the same – increase the income (taxes) to allow for increases in spending. If your interest is what is best for the PEOPLE, then the ideal solution is to DECREASE spending AND as much as possible to DECREASE “income” (taxes).
Bush’s failure financially was that he tried to walk a middle road of decreasing “income” (taxes) while allowing the increase in spending to continue. It wasn’t the smartest thing he came up with during his stay (not that I’m sure he could have decreased the spending if he wanted to)
I’m not going to defend the Bush administration’s spending, but as bad as it was, it wasn’t nearly as ruinous as the exorbitant increase in spending that we’ve seen from the Obama administration.
You can’t blame Bush without condemning Obama as well. Doing the same thing,only three times as much, isn’t suddenly a good policy.
Yep. It’s ALL Bush’s fault.
http://tinyurl.com/ycx78oo
nice try housewife.
Obama inherited this mess, which was created by Republicans.
Fail.
This mess was created by Democrats – who have had control of Congress since 2006. Who voted NOT to put regulation onto Freddie & Fannie…when President GW Bush requested it.
Oh, Niall doesn’t really believe such things, I don’t think. Just likes the way it rolls off the keyboard.
Plenty of blame to go around for our current mess, from lax oversight – most of the folks at the Fed and SEC who peek in on Wall Street are lawyers, rather than financiers – to the well-intentioned but ultimately ruinous social advancement policies of Bill Clinton and Barney Frank who insisted that failure to make housing loans to those NINJAs (no income, no jobs or assets) in disadvantaged neighborhoods or face federal suits for prima facie evidence of discrimination in lending (no safe harbor, e.g.), to the mortgage brokers who bundled off the risks of their increasingly risky investments, to the greedy folks out there who snapped them up, thinking that markets could only ever go up, to the morons who thought that a couple of high school teachers raising two kids with no savings – and therefore no skin in the game – could swing a million dollar mortgage.
But that would take nuance, and honesty. Niall would rather try to score points.
“Plenty of blame to go around” indeed.
Congressfolk and presidents from BOTH parties share the blame. Have ANY of them proposed a balanced budget in the last few decades? The Republicans didn’t when they were in charge and neither did the Democrats. A pox on all of our dithering “leaders.”
If Niall’s response wasn’t so childish it might merit comment. But it is so I won’t.
Obama (D-IL), Yea
Just so you can thank everyone responsible.
Wait, wait wait. This is positive news. For every man, woman, and child entering the country through legal means we now bill them on arrival their $39K.
Welcome to America, check please!
“Mr Obama said he HOPES …”. Now there’s a strategy we can all rest assured will work.
Double sigh -
I have never really understood the fits folks have over national debt. First, we have a Congress and they chosse to spend money, in part based on polls (and lobbyists) who tell them what we want – if we are eating our future it is because we choose to do so. Second, why does no one ever compute this a net debt figure? When I go to the bank they ask about debt, sure, but they also ask about cash flow and assets and risk. Seems to me, if we want to worry about this, lets worry about it in context – what is the real net national debt. Granted the market for a Nimitz carrier is small but we own a few really valuable things too – Yosemite for example. What is the real net debt? What is our cash flow like – or to put it another way, as a nation do we create more wealth than we consume? I have a feeling that number would scare me… and that risk thing – not just measuring what may get blown up but also risks like not paying our bills. Really, if we default, who is going to try to collect? Are the developing nations (or the developed) going to quit selling to us because of collection risk – I doubt that, such risk just drives up prices.
Ducking the incoming…
RAS
Unfortunately when we deal with public policy we perforce deal with human beings called politicians whose time horizon extends only to their personal retirement. The vast majority of which calculate that the bill for the spending with which they buy votes won’t come due until they are retired and on the greens at Sarasota or wherever. Of course these calculations don’t always pan out. Neville Chamberlin thought he could buy “peace in our time,” or at least long enough to see him through his career in office. Unfortunately for Neville, and more importantly, for the English people, events didn’t cooperate. There is a lesson in that.
VX — welcome back. You were missed.
VX
What Scott said times two. Hope the confuser is fully operational. if not, call. Cheers
Richard – you run a business like that? Inquiring bankers want to know. Remember the difference between money and currency.
Hey VX,
Was wondering where you were. Good to “see” you back, buddy.
If you need anything, just holler.
Nice to see you back here Mr. Virgil.
This would be funny, if it wasn’t so damned scarey. I warned that our fiscal path was a ruinous path many moons ago right here on this blog. Echoed the sentiments of David M. Walker. With the exception of a few, the thought that our debt was too large was cast aside. Some of us have been painting this picture for a long time. At least more of you see our future for what it truly will be if we don’t haul in the rampant spending of the State AND Federal Governments. Our childrens children (if they can afford them…) will be cleaning this mess up long after we are done lamenting the loss of our Social Security and Medicare. Of course, if we do decide to take the painful path immediately, maybe we can survive as a country. I do have hope. Just no change left in my pocket.
Richard..you’re right of course that one should look at the balance sheet…assets vs liabilities…and not just at the “debt” side. The government & pseudo-government debt used to build the hydroelectric dams in the 1930s, for example, was offset by the creation of a productive asset. So was the debt that funded the Interstate highway system. And the same was probably true, less tangibly, for the debt component of the spending on the post-WWII GE Bill.
But most of the debt now being incurred is not for this kind of purchases. Some of it is going to dysfunctional public schools,which it will not make any *less* dysfunctional. Some of it is going to colleges, which will spend a significant portion of it on squishy-soft courses, political indoctrination, and improved mansions for university presidents. And a fair amount of it is going to what are in essence political payoffs.
What the heck does a little ole’ $98 Billion matter?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/34009267
No problem. Continued tax increases for the wealthy. It’s patriotic. Joe Biden sez so.
Sorry. But can I take this worthless piece of you know what across the Equator on a non-coed vessel?
Somehow I don’t think they’ll take the government’s case…