Monday, January 21, 2008
Stop the noise
Our country is $53 Trillion in debt. That is $455,000 for EVERY HOUSEHOLD in the U.S.--households that make on average $63,500 per year. Now, unless you are George Edema, that is some serious money. And it's getting worse every year. I am not an alarmist, but I want to know what these presidential candidates propose to do about this. Any solution I see will have some serious pain in it. It's time to talk about the 800lb gorilla.
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5 comments:
Yeah, those numbers don't mean a whole lot. You can't really take the Dave Ramsey approach to the federal checking account.
I'd stick with the bigger issues - right to life, national defense, etc.
right to life? what is that?
and apparently, if you are a libertarian, we don't actually have to pay back any of the money we borrowed because we are america and we can roll that way.
Why can't we take the Dave Ramsey approach? It's pretty simple: Spend less than you make and pay off your debt. It is certainly possible to do, but nobody in government has the will to make hard decisions that require sacrifice.
Right to life - you know, the right to drive around in trucks with pictures of aborted fetuses.
Why can't we take the Dave Ramsey approach? Global/National politics and trade debt is not simple and it ain't like the government has a mastercard to pay off. Granted, they should have to cut back like we should, but most of the deficit is trade deficit and those numbers just don't mean quite the same thing as if it was a personal checking account/financial situation like what Dave Ramsey says. I'm not really going to take the time to explain it here, but when he cracks the joke about a concept congress can't grasp, it's just a selling point and not something that is actually workable in a global market trade sense.
According to the Financial Management Service (http://www.fms.treas.gov/bulletin) the actual national debt is about $9 trillion with ~44% held by various U.S. government agencies and ~56% held privately (this includes foreign investors). The national trade deficit (and overall budget deficit) certainly does affect the national debt, any deficit adds to the debt. The government actually owes people money, every grandmother who has purchased a savings bond or treasury bill owns a little piece of the government debt. And she expects that when she cashes her bond that she'll get paid the amount owed her. You can do all the financial gymnastics in the world, but if your total revenue exceeds your total expenditures then the excess can indeed be used to reduce the national debt (say pay back the Social Security Trust Fund for example). The following page has some good information on the subject: http://mwhodges.home.att.net/
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