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.