National debt grows $1 million a minute

[Janett_Reno]

This is what Republicans are proud of. This is what the American public needs to know about a Republican. Then decide who you should vote for. Remember i have already told you about faith and values and about Larry Craig morals. Now let's see who cares about the United States Of America. If you want some straight facts people and not bs that some of these neocons try to feed you, then you need to open your eyes and see what other people are saying and Republicans. Yes, even Republicans. Do you want to be a slave and controlled by China, Japan and Saudi Arabia? It is looking alot this way. Republican Sen. George Voinovich says it best, it is very important that out future is not controlled by the people who controls our money and our debt. This neocon adm doesn't care because they want to strip Social Security anyway. They want to cut and do away with low income and help programs for people in need. They feel they have enough money and oil wells that it won't effect them but trust me, it will even effect the neocons also. You can't sell off your country this way and strip the United States of it's core. This is by far the worst adm we have ever had and it sounds as if none of them got past economics 101. It is all a Tx Ranger baseball game to them with scores. This is what you get when you put a cowboy bozo in and a master in Cheney and Ramsfield to control him. You get national disaster.

You can read on who controls your banks, who controls your money and this ties into oil also, controls you, controls your country. What is scarry, it isn't just oil tycoons here anymore but certain ones has sold us out to Saudi Arabia, China and Japan. Japan is buying up most of the USA land, China is buying out most companies and exporting the most here and abroad and is getting to be the biggest money maker it is and we owe them forever. Saudi is where your suicide bombers came from and i promise you, you will not like China and Saudi making decisions here. Remember when i said we can't or the muslim people and the middle east population will not and does not like living like us, there country run like ours, or us making decisions for them? This is the same thing, we are not and you are not going to like living like Saudi, China and them making decisions for you either. They don't live like us and if you think your freedoms are stripped now, just wait untill later.

Now dude will probably say, money is money and it is not important and neither is Social Security but it is. He will have excuses why Bill Clinton had this country filthy rich and a surplus and since he has left office, this adm has taken that surplus and bankrupted the USA, to the point now China, Saudi and Japan makes alot of our important decisions and look what happened in one day trading on the stock market. A Chinesse official mentioned, we might start investing in Euros, instead of dollars because the dollars are getting pretty bad and not the standard anymore and the stock market dropped over 300 points on that comment. So again, do you own stock? It concerns you. You can lose everything you have worked for all your life in a week with bozo's like we have now. Oh dude will give you excuses, it is war, it was 9/11 and it is many more things, so it is ok to be a slave to China and Saudi. You decide for yourself. We are also not going to get those Iraqi oil wells. We will not own that country. All that being built back will come out of your pocket and the tax payers and will continue to be built back up years and years from now, no matter who controsl Iraq. How are all these thousands and thousands of Iraqis imigrating to the usa that W has let in, going to make it? To start off, welfare, food stamps and gov programs will fund them and help them awhile. Remember, these programs that are already in trouble, so let's stress them more. Why not start them on Social Security also.

This adm doesn't think. They act and do as they please and then after the fact, they say, to bad it is your problem now. When the next pres comes in and our country is on the brink of finacial disaster, neocons like dude will say, well see i told you so, Rudy has ruined us or Hillary has ruined us. It is not Rudy or Hillary, but whomever get's in, they have got one heck of a battle and hardship getting this country back on track because of what this adm has done. Yes i have painted a bleek picture and it is one with many people that is going to lose their homes and any money they have and especially material things but i also believe in the greatest country now or ever in the world. Thank god the people can make change and i trust in the next president will get us back on the right track and fight for the American people and our best interest, not for releasing oil and oil wells in foreign lands. What was gas when Clinton was in? Maybe 1.29 per gallon or so. So this adm wants to ease oil prices a lil, yea right, you got 3.00 per gallon now and you will never see Clinton gas prices again. Huckabee and Romney are charging hard on Rudy and today in one of the major polls, Huckabee was only 3 points behind Rudy nationally. Why is this important?

Rudy is going to fight for big oil, keep the wars burning and be an extension of Chains and Rams. His law firm and big oil are brothers and they fight together and even gutted the clean air act, with the help of Chains, W and Barbour. Huckabee and Romney won't sell out the usa. They do not think oil wells are number one on our list. Hillary is smart and she has got past economics 101. So if this country gets Hillary against Romney or Huckabee, then we are going to be safe no matter who wins. Rudy, you get more of what you had for the last 8 years. The good thing, Rudy is taking some hits now and yes i have said it will be Rudy against Hillary but i sure hope i am wrong. The next president will tackle and take on our real problems in the USA, and this will be a blessing and a god send. Unless it is Rudy, it will probably be more middle east war drums beating. For all you Republicans, remember this, in the new poll Hillary is only leading Huckabee by 1 small point in the polls nationally. So think with your on mind and when someone like dude tells you, you must elect a Democrat, in Rudy that believes in abortion and gay rights, is a Catholic and has the almighty backing of Pat Robertson himself and you must back him because in the polls he has a shot at Hillary because Fox News tells me this and that no conservative has a chance at Hillary, then look at the polls now. Is this really true? Can a real conservative have a chance? You might be surprised as Huck is only down 1 point to Hillary and only down 3 to Rudy.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071203/...SwOCT4vq4DW7oF

Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It's expanding by about $1.4 billion a day — or nearly $1 million a minute.

What's that mean to you?

It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.

Even if you've escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That's because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.

And like homeowners who took out adjustable-rate mortgages, the government faces the prospect of seeing this debt — now at relatively low interest rates — rolling over to higher rates, multiplying the financial pain.

So long as somebody is willing to keep loaning the U.S. government money, the debt is largely out of sight, out of mind.

But the interest payments keep compounding, and could in time squeeze out most other government spending — leading to sharply higher taxes or a cut in basic services like Social Security and other government benefit programs. Or all of the above.

A major economic slowdown, as some economists suggest may be looming, could hasten the day of reckoning.

The national debt — the total accumulation of annual budget deficits — is up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009.

That's $10,000,000,000,000.00, or one digit more than an odometer-style "national debt clock" near New York's Times Square can handle. When the privately owned automated clock was activated in 1989, the national debt was $2.7 trillion.

It only gets worse.

Over the next 25 years, the number of Americans aged 65 and up is expected to almost double. The work population will shrink and more and more baby boomers will be drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits, putting new demands on the government's resources.

These guaranteed retirement and health benefit programs now make up the largest component of federal spending. Defense is next. And moving up fast in third place is interest on the national debt, which totaled $430 billion last year.

Aggravating the debt picture: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates could cost $2.4 trillion over the next decade

Despite vows in both parties to restrain federal spending, the national debt as a percentage of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product has grown from about 35 percent in 1975 to around 65 percent today. By historical standards, it's not proportionately as high as during World War II — when it briefly rose to 120 percent of GDP, but it's a big chunk of liability.

"The problem is going forward," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard and Poors, a major credit-rating agency.

"Our estimate is that the national debt will hit 350 percent of the GDP by 2050 under unchanged policy. Something has to change, because if you look at what's going to happen to expenditures for entitlement programs after us baby boomers start to retire, at the current tax rates, it doesn't work," Wyss said.

With national elections approaching, candidates of both parties are talking about fiscal discipline and reducing the deficit and accusing the other of irresponsible spending. But the national debt itself — a legacy of overspending dating back to the American Revolution — receives only occasional mention.

Who is loaning Washington all this money?

Ordinary investors who buy Treasury bills, notes and U.S. savings bonds, for one. Also it is banks, pension funds, mutual fund companies and state, local and increasingly foreign governments. This accounts for about $5.1 trillion of the total and is called the "publicly held" debt. The remaining $4 trillion is owed to Social Security and other government accounts, according to the Treasury Department, which keeps figures on the national debt down to the penny on its Web site.

Some economists liken the government's plight to consumers who spent like there was no tomorrow — only to find themselves maxed out on credit cards and having a hard time keeping up with rising interest payments.

"The government is in the same predicament as the average homeowner who took out an adjustable mortgage," said Stanley Collender, a former congressional budget analyst and now managing director at Qorvis Communications, a business consulting firm.

Much of the recent borrowing has been accomplished through the selling of shorter-term Treasury bills. If these loans roll over to higher rates, interest payments on the national debt could soar. Furthermore, the decline of the dollar against other major currencies is making Treasury securities less attractive to foreigners — even if they remain one of the world's safest investments.

For now, large U.S. trade deficits with much of the rest of the world work in favor of continued foreign investment in Treasuries and dollar-denominated securities. After all, the vast sums Americans pay — in dollars — for imported goods has to go somewhere. But that dynamic could change.

"The first day the Chinese or the Japanese or the Saudis say, `we've bought enough of your paper,' then the debt — whatever level it is at that point — becomes unmanageable," said Collender.

A recent comment by a Chinese lawmaker suggesting the country should buy more euros instead of dollars helped send the Dow Jones plunging more than 300 points.

The dollar is down about 35 percent since the end of 2001 against a basket of major currencies.

Foreign governments and investors now hold some $2.23 trillion — or about 44 percent — of all publicly held U.S. debt. That's up 9.5 percent from a year earlier.

Japan is first with $586 billion, followed by China ($400 billion) and Britain ($244 billion). Saudi Arabia and other oil-exporting countries account for $123 billion, according to the Treasury.

"Borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from China and OPEC puts not only our future economy, but also our national security, at risk. It is critical that we ensure that countries that control our debt do not control our future," said Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, a Republican budget hawk.

Of all federal budget categories, interest on the national debt is the one the president and Congress have the least control over. Cutting payments would amount to default, something Washington has never done.

Congress must from time to time raise the debt limit — sort of like a credit card maximum — or the government would be unable to borrow any further to keep it operating and to pay additional debt obligations.

The Democratic-led Congress recently did just that, raising the ceiling to $9.82 trillion as the former $8.97 trillion maximum was about to be exceeded. It was the fifth debt-ceiling increase since Bush became president in 2001.

Democrats are blaming the runup in deficit spending on Bush and his Republican allies who controlled Congress for the first six years of his presidency. They criticize him for resisting improvements in health care, education and other vital areas while seeking nearly $200 billion in new Iraq and Afghanistan war spending.

"We pay in interest four times more than we spend on education and four times what it will cost to cover 10 million children with health insurance for five years," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "That's fiscal irresponsibility."

Republicans insist congressional Democrats are the irresponsible ones. Bush has reinforced his call for deficit reduction with vetoes and veto threats and cites a looming "train wreck" if entitlement programs are not reined in.

Yet his efforts two years ago to overhaul Social Security had little support, even among fellow Republicans.

The deficit only reflects the gap between government spending and tax revenues for one year. Not exactly how a family or a business keeps its books.

Even during the four most recent years when there was a budget surplus, 1998-2001, the national debt ranged between $5.5 trillion and $5.8 trillion.

As in trying to pay off a large credit-card balance by only making minimum payments, the overall debt might be next to impossible to chisel down appreciably, regardless of who is in the White House or which party controls Congress, without major spending cuts, tax increases or both.

"The basic facts are a matter of arithmetic, not ideology," said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group that advocates eliminating federal deficits.

There's little dispute that current fiscal policies are unsustainable, he said. "Yet too few of our elected leaders in Washington are willing to acknowledge the seriousness of the long-term fiscal problem and even fewer are willing to put it on the political agenda."

Polls show people don't like the idea of saddling future generations with debt, but proposing to pay down the national debt itself doesn't move the needle much.

"People have a tendency to put some of these longer term problems out of their minds because they're so pressed with more imminent worries, such as wages and jobs and income inequality," said pollster Andrew Kohut of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

Texas billionaire Ross Perot made paying down the national debt a central element of his quixotic third-party presidential bid in 1992. The national debt then stood at $4 trillion and Perot displayed charts showing it would soar to $8 trillion by 2007 if left unchecked. He was about a trillion low.

Not long ago, it actually looked like the national debt could be paid off — in full. In the late 1990s, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office projected a surplus of a $5.6 trillion over ten years — and calculated the debt would be paid off as early as 2006.

Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan recently wrote that he was "stunned" and even troubled by such a prospect. Among other things, he worried about where the government would park its surplus if Treasury bonds went out of existence because they were no longer needed.

Not to worry. That surplus quickly evaporated.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, said he's more concerned that interest on the national debt will become unsustainable than he is that foreign countries will dump their dollar holdings — something that would undermine the value of their own vast holdings. "We're going to have to shell out a lot of resources to make those interest payments. There's a very strong argument as to why it's vital that we address our budget issues before they get measurably worse," Zandi said.

"Of course, that's not going to happen until after the next president is in the White House," he added.

[nowhereman]

omg our national debt rose soo much while i was reading that

[kg_veteran]

Janett, it sounds like you are a fiscal conservative, which makes me wonder aloud:

Do you really think this is a Republican/Democrat issue? It seems to me that neither party (at least based on recent history) has any qualms about running up the national debt. You said, "This is what the American public needs to know about a Republican," or somesuch, as if Democrats are any better.

If you want a fiscal conservative, perhaps you should be supporting Ron Paul. (Are you?)

[dude1394]

Get your head out of your rear end janet and think a little bit. No doubt we spend too much money and I would love to see the ponzi-scheme social security revised but at least take the time to think about what you are posting. But don't just take ridiculous raw numbers withtout some context. Go to engrams site, you'll learn things like critical thinking. You'll like it.

http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/...s-economy.html

The budget deficit. That's always an interesting topic. Reporters have relentlessly harped on the fact that we've had "record deficits" during the Bush years. That's false, and it only seems otherwise because reporters are not very smart (but they seem to think they are). They almost always report the value in absolute terms, which is meaningless when an economy is growing. Expressed as a percentage of GDP, we've never been close to record deficits. Moreover, the deficit is quite small right now:

We had a stock-market-induced surplus during the Clinton years that evaporated when the market crashed, but, by and large, the deficit measure during the Bush years has been quite good (despite the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq). The G6 is doing fine on this measure as well. I know, I know: a deficit disaster looms in our future. In fact, it's always that way, and it always will be. But just so you know: the predicted catastrophe is much worse for the other nations of the G6 than it is for the U.S.

What about net national debt? Reporters are always harping on this, and being the uninformed dolts that they are, they always present a meaningless absolute figure that runs into the trillions of dollars. Here is the real story:

[Janett_Reno]

I like Ron Paul. I am not for throwing our money away, our morals and our faith and values. It tells in that article that during W's adm the national debt ceiling level has been raised like 5 or 6 times. This was done by by a Republican congress for awhile and now a Democrtaic congress but i do not blame neither the Republican or Democratic congress because if they did not do something, we was broke. We had no more money to do squat. The neocons try to hold you up by saying, the boogiemen are going to get you if you do not invade more, give us more money, where we can throw more away. The neocons are using the system in bad bad ways.

This adm has one goal and it is not a good goal to sell the United States out at any cost and doing so, they have and will destroy our economic system. I do not believe in a slave master of China or Saudi and for that matter even Japan, telling me how to live and me being a slave to them. I like my christian beliefs and i love my country. I do not try to tell China or Saudi how to live or act but also i do not want them telling me how to live.

I believe in my system and i do not want the neocons to strip social security. All they seem to care for is a select few. You know why that won't work? Because when you hold people down, won't feed them, let them work, cut their pay, do not give them a job, cut all benefits, strip social security and try to make some people live in a dog house, they will go out and feed their family someway. Those someways aren't always good way's but they have to survive.

I have said, i support Hillary and i would also support Obama or Edwards. I like Ron Paul and also i would not be afraid of Huckabee or Romney. Huckabee would be just fine i think. I believe in our roads, our hospitals, eductaion, infrastructure, illegal imigration, protecting the usa and our borders, not protecting China, Iraq, Iran, and other stupid neocon ideas. I don't believe in big oil and chasing oil wells around the world. I do not believe in pushing gas prices to 4.00 a gallon. I believe in jobs and the American people. I believe in protecting the air i breathe, the fish i catch, the water and not gut the clean air act to let more Halliburton's pump toxins into oceans and lakes and into the air and say this is ok, because global warming is only an Al Gore thing. It is not true and nothing about it is true and let's wreck the waterways, the air and everything in it.

I am for people not oil wells. I am for a free society not slave masters. If Ron Paul is for all i am for, yes i like Ron Paul. The neocons and dude likes the idea because he is a neocon, take over the middle east, us sit there and as many as we can take over, take them, hold them, use that oil and resources and say it is a terrorist thing when Alan Greenspan, A REPUBLICAN, told the American people and a brilliant man it was an oil thing with these neocons. Not a terrorist thing. Not a weapons of mass destructions thing.

The neocons state we need a battleground to fight the boogiemen, when we make more boogiemen by invading countries for whatever reasons the neocons make up. The Republicans, the Democrats and the American people are the ones now, why Bush and Chains are not invading Iran. They have begged to.

I don't live by a credit card and anyone does is in for a bad time, later on. Nothing is free. You just watch people you know losing houses and losing lots of things in the next year or so. That bad times are upon them. I will agree that many politicians and both parties at times are bad big spenders and throws money away. No one in history has been like the neocons. They have Republican behind the names and Hagel, Lugar, and many others know this is wrecking the Republican party. I also know Bill Clinton balanced a budget and had a surplus when the neocons came in. The neocons have spent money uncontrollable and have tried to wreck this economy as best they could and have did a great job at it.

I'll tell you who i won't support and that is Rudy. Rudy sold out to big oil and is in that same big mansion and boat with W, Chains and Rams rides around in. The same people that control them , control Rudy. Rudy is a Libberman. Who wins as the war machine rolls, big oil again. Look how much the military spends a day in gas and oil per day. The numbers are unbelievable. T Boone loves it, Saudi loves it, and big oil and throw in Haliburton as well as the neocons tied to big oil. Rudy is a man for everything and whatever flavor of the week it is, he is for it. He is another sell out like the neocons. I believe in a person that has backbone, can think with their own mind, can make decisions, and someone that has a mind. I hope it is enough movement and people that have backbone in the Republican party, that calls themself a Republican to stand for what they believe in and not give another neocon a shot in the next 4 years.

That is why i respect wm and other Republicans, if they are Republicans, that do not let Fox News and dude tell them, overlook Rudy the Democrat, who cares about all the immoral stuff he is into, he might can beat hillary and who cares about our country or issues? Just beat Hillary. Those people are dangerous and those are neocons. We don't need anymore of them.

[dude1394]

This is good. This is good for you Janett. Mr. Engram responds directly to your post. This will help you to use logic, numbers and reasoning in your thinking. Trust me, it will be worth it. Jeehosophat..you mean canada has higher gross debt/gdp than the US, how can it be?
http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/...eam-media.html

U.S. government debt soars

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It's expanding by about $1.4 billion a day -- or nearly $1 million a minute.

What's that mean to you?

It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.

Even if you've escaped the recent housing and credit crunches and are coping with rising fuel prices, you may still be headed for economic misery, along with the rest of the country. That's because the government is fast straining resources needed to meet interest payments on the national debt, which stands at a mind-numbing $9.13 trillion.


$9 trillion? OH...MY...GOD!! Who's responsible for this veritable orgy of federal spending and the monstrous debt that goes along with it? A debt that we are passing on to the children of the next generation, I might add. Fortunately, this helpful reporter provides the answer:

The national debt -- the total accumulation of annual budget deficits -- is up from $5.7 trillion when President George W. Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009.
...
Democrats are blaming the run-up in deficit spending on Bush and his Republican allies who controlled Congress for the first six years of his presidency. They criticize him for resisting improvements in health care, education and other vital areas while seeking nearly $200 billion in new Iraq and Afghanistan war spending.


Just as I suspected. Bush. He just had to go and invade Iraq, thereby running up the national debt to absolutely mind-boggling levels. To see how bad things really are, I checked the data at the International Monetary Fund, as I always do. Here are the results:


OH...MY...GOD!! As you can plainly see, the figure ballooned to a staggering $8 trillion by 2006, and it is now probably zeroing in on $9 trillion as it races towards $10 trillion by the time Bush leaves office. Well, that does it. I'm through with Bush. Just look at how the national debt has skyrocketed on his watch. We need a change. It's high time to put a Democrat in the White House so we can restore some of the fiscal responsibility that was in effect during the Clinton years.

Still with me? I just wanted to illustrate how an uninformed dolt (plus all mainstream media reporters) would analyze the debt situation. Now let's analyze the accumulated debt the way a normal person should.

First, you can immediately spot someone who has no idea what he is talking about if he is discussing the growing debt in terms of dollars (e.g., when a reporter refers to a $9 trillion debt that is on its way to $10 trillion). The reason is that the economy itself is also growing, so the only relevant figure is debt expressed as a percentage of GDP. This is an elementary and completely uncontroversial consideration, yet few reporters seem to be aware of it. This reporter briefly discusses the "percent of GDP" issue late in the article, but he does not provide enough information to see what has really happened over the last 25 years. In fact, he provides no context at all. What he should have provided is a simple chart like the one I'm about to show you. Of course, if he had done that, he wouldn't have had a story to write (so nevermind).

I analyzed "gross debt" because that's the figure that always bothers mainstream media reporters. However, as I learned from reading this post, we really should be discussing "net debt," not "gross debt." But the story is much the same either way, so I'll stick with gross debt to see if the situation has spiraled out of control on Bush's watch. Here's the chart:


Quite a different story, isn't it? And this is the real story, unlike the first chart I presented. Look at this chart and ask yourself: is there any reason to become hysterical over the debt situation during the Bush years? Obviously not. What you see is a stable situation, with a slight but temporary improvement during the dot-com bubble years in the late 1990s. Things were worse in the early to mid 1990s, when the debt was approximately 70% of GDP, but now the figure seems stable at about 60% of GDP.

Now let's look at the 2006 gross debt statistic for the advanced industrialized nations of the world, namely, the G7 (again, according to the IMF). Surely the U.S. debt is vastly worse than that of the other advanced nations because of George Bush's misbegotten adventure in Iraq. Right? Wrong:


If you want to disintegrate into a hysterical fit of anti-Bush rage over the U.S. debt situation, suit yourself. Just make sure that you understand how ridiculous you are being if you choose to do that.

[Mavdog]

both parties have a ton of fiscal irresponsibility and blame to go around.

to minimize the issue by looking at the per cent of debt to gdp doesn't help, it seems to rationalize what is a serious problem.

spending needs to decrease. period.

the tax code needs to be revised, and some of the tax cuts for the highly affluent should be ended.

and if I read one more reference to the clinton acheivement of budget surpluses due to "dot com bubble", well, I'm going to scream. the bottom line is there were surpluses with budgets that were somewhat disciplined in their spending.