While Congress continues to gush money in Iraq and Afghanistan (and offers to pay for an over $200 million missile system for Israel), U.S. debt is now over $13,000,000,000,000. That is roughly $118,000 per taxpayer.
The White House and Congress show no serious commitment to addressing this problem as they pile on pork projects and spend wildly. We are looking at a disaster of global proportions. Yet, even as states are forced to sell off parks and public properties (here and here), the United States continues to act like a teenager on an unlimited credit card.
For the debt figures, click here
While being in Iraq and Afghanistan is questionable, it is supplying over 250,000 American contractors jobs. Additionally almost 200,000 military personnel are there. I have no idea what the figures are for CIA,NSA and other government civilians there. However, that’s a lot of money lost out of the economy if those folks were not employed by these 2 wars.
The time to worry about the debt is not during record high unemployment and recession.
One of the reasons that the federal government can borrow is for times such as these. There needs to be a second stimulus, larger on the spending and without tax cuts which are not stimulative.
The Feds need to send large targeted grants to the states to keep people working. The unemployed tend not to spend any money, and spending by consumers is the first step to getting us out of this mess.
Next, big public works projects–infrastructure, so we can have an electric grid that doesn’t collapse when it snows, in Kansas, in the winter. Just about every bridge in the US needs to be repaired, retrofitted, or replaced. Now is the time to do that, because we need it and because those newly employed workers will spend their paychecks.
Once we have people working, then it will be time to deal with the debt. The first place would be to end those grotesque wars we are fighting with borrowed money, wars that are doing more to create terrorists than anything else.
Then fix the health care bill by making it Medicare for all. That will lower costs significantly (Medicare spends 2% of premiums on administration, compared to 25% and more by the insurance industry).
Then it is time for the very wealthy who made out like bandits during the Bush spending spree to start paying it back.
Byron:
Good question – It’s pretty apparent that not enough people use the brain cells they have. Prime example for me is Joe Lieberman. I didn’t vote for him, but he was re-elected.
charles gradshow:
My apologizes to our drunken sailors, worldwide, especially those enjoying Fleet Week! 🙂
It’s useful to look at the debt as a percentage of GDP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Federal_Debt_as_Percent_of_GDP_by_President.jpg
Also interesting is the fact that Republicans are typically seen as “deficit hawks” and generally flap their gums in hysteria about the debt. Eisenhower, who would be run out of the Republican party today, was the last Republican administration to make a dent in the debt, as a percent of GDP. Nixon/Ford was a wash, essentially. Carter brought it down a bit. Then Regan/HW Bush ran it up, and Clinton brought it down a bit. Extending the pattern, W. Bush ran it right back up again. Similar to the Democratic presidents during WWII, Obama is having to deal with the Bush wars and the economic collapse by engaging in emergency spending. The question will be whether we can bring this debt down from a peak, the way we did in the late 40s through the 60s.
Byron,
You are correct, of course, I was referring to trillions when we get to $15T debt in 2011. The thought is staggering.
One of the things we’ll see before the conclusion of all this is that the US will have to borrow in foreign currencies (like Yen), protecting the lenders against devaluation of the US dollar to inflate our way out of the debt.
If they were smart our future lenders would actually price the loan in gold.
The thing to remember here is that a lot of our debtors are overseas, and we owe them dollars, not yuan.
Charles:
and French whores are engaging in a mutually agreeable trade where value is given and received. The end result being mutual satisfaction of both parties.
vlf2112
1, May 26, 2010 at 10:07 am
“the United States continues to act like a teenager on an unlimited credit card.”
Professor, you are too kind. I liken it to spending like drunken sailors in a french whorehouse.
That’s an insult to drunken sailors – At least they’re spending their OWN money
Buddha:
I spent a few years in local republican politics, they had a couple of different ways of doing the selection; convention, primary or anointment by the party higher ups who were usually little old ladies with too much time on their hands. You had to really kiss their asses if you wanted to move ahead. I guess you have to start somewhere.
It ought to be an open primary with 6 people minimum debating the issues anyone who can the required signatures should be able to run in the primary.
They typically pick the candidate based on who they think will win, the press and the current group think of the day has a good deal to do with choosing a local candidate (i.e. congressman, state rep, state senator, etc.). It isn’t some grand cabal of business people but older men and women who think they know something. So from my vantage point people with reduced blood flow to their brains are choosing a good many of our elected representatives. It shows :).
Ah, wise Buddha. You speak of the “appearance of election.” You must also know about the “appearance of freedom” too.
And just a peak at how these “selections” are made:
Soon after World War II ended, a group of Whittier Republicans approached Nixon about running for a seat in the United States House of Representatives. Nixon accepted their offer, and waged a campaign which ended in a victory over the five-term Democratic incumbent Jerry Voorhis in November 1946. Nixon represented southern California’s 12th Congressional district for the next four years.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon)
Seems fairly innocuous at first glance, until you ask yourself: Who comprises this group of “Whittier Republicans”? What are their economic interests? What are their ties to elite social and policy making groups? What are the natures of their financial investments and their long-term strategic goals?
There is a lot more to a group of “helpful community leaders” than meets the eye. We need to be more critical of those who claim to helping while at the same time coning us out of freedom, money and the long-term stability of the United States.
Lastly, with this debt, we are headed for disaster. States are already borrowing from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits, California and NY are essentially bankrupt, and no one is taking leadership or responsibility.
And the president’s debt commission is a joke from the start since defense spending was taken off the table. Everyone knows if you’re trying to improve a system (the tax and budget process of the country), you must look at the WHOLE system. To look at bits and pieces is only putting a band-aid on a gusher. There needs to be a comprehensive audit of the federal government, it’s agencies and organizations, both on a fiscal and fiduciary level. What programs have outlived their effectiveness? What programs can be consolidated with others, etc..?
It’s not just about saving money, it’s about organizational effectiveness at this point.
Byron,
Did we elect them or were they pre-selected?
Vlf2112:
we elected them, how many brain cells do we have?
Puzzling:
you mean trillion not billion.
A few years of a free market would take care of those numbers. Plus we have significant oil, coal and natural gas deposits. But when the Chinese want their money the Sierra Club is going to be hating life.
You cant cheat reality Puzz, just sit back and enjoy the coming spectacle.
Here’s the problem:
http://www.concordcoalition.org/files/uploaded_for_nodes/WebSiteTalk032010.pdf
Here’s some solutions:
http://www.concordcoalition.org/publications/2008/0331/taking-back-our-fiscal-future
JT – Get ready to post again in seven months, when the debt is expected to top $14B, and then $15B in the middle of next year.
This is just debt we owe. It doesn’t count unfunded promises we made that we haven’t borrowed for yet, which easily tops $50 trillion in the coming two decades.
And that doesn’t count debt at the state and municipal levels.
If the cost of borrowing becomes higher for the United States government then interest on the debt could rapidly reach 100% of taxes collected or more. Remember that much of this debt isn’t funded by 30 year bonds, but two year T-bills! If rates rise we are going to feel the effect immediately.
The nation is bankrupt. This borrowing is intergenerational theft. What we are consuming today will be paid for by our debt slave children and grandchildren tomorrow in a sharply reduced standard of living.
Government must be radically reduced in size, entitlements collapsed and the US empire shut down. End the wars, including the war on drugs. End rampant corporatism. End the prison-industrial complex. End fractional reserve banking and a central bank that allows our government to borrow trillions, stealing further from us through inflation. Turn it off.
“the United States continues to act like a teenager on an unlimited credit card.”
Professor, you are too kind. I liken it to spending like drunken sailors in a french whorehouse.
Congress says what it does in order to get elected- duh. As we all well know, during the last campaign cycle, both Democrats and Republicans swore until they were blue in the face that they were going to cut spending, cut pork, blah, blah, blah. Yet, having a couple of brain cells, those of us in the know heard exactly what they are saying: it’s not THEIR individual pork they want to cut, but everyone else’s. So, when you have 435 representatives, and 100 senators with the same mindset, does anyone really have to wonder why we are in the clusterf*ck we currently find ourselves in?
This debt is intentional and aided by unnecessary “wars” promoted under the guise of spreading democracy. That tradition is called the Truman Doctrine. Woodrow Wilson first promoted it. Bush used it to wage unjust war as well.
At this hour, our leaders’ goal is to plunder Americans in order to save the world FOR the sake Marxism or world government, which ever comes first.
We must be brought to our knees in order to accept the new world order (or as Mr. Obama called it at West Point “The New International Order.”)
That’s just the old global scheme of the Council on Foreign Relations. Joe Biden poses as an imbecilic boob, but is in charge of making sure the CFR sedition is on track. Just like Dick Cheney was in charge. And before him Bill Clinton and Bush 41.
Hillary Clinton recently referred to the grip the CFR has on the Constitution here when she said
“I have been often to, I guess, the mother ship [offices] in New York City, but it’s good to have an outpost of the Council [on Foreign Relations] right here down the street from the State Department. We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future…”
It goes against the entire historical record of the human race to believe that such a concentration of power as it exists in the Council on Foreign Relations cannot be a grave threat to us when in fact people from the council do always operate the most powerful levers of government.
The bulk of our debt is social programs (S.S. medicaid, etc.) not war. These programs are not authorized by the Constitution for the federal government (they are reserved to the states and the people only). And they therefore constitute theft and usurpation.
This is confirmed by many evidences.
The Father of our Constitution said:
“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of government.” James Madison.
It is logical to assume that this is because charity by gunpoint is evil.
And Folks, that’s Trillion with a Tuh, Tuh, Tuh, T…
This is the kinda Democratic Left Change Obama wuz a’ talkin’ ’bout ’cause we aint got no real pocket Change Left.
Pass the buck! That’s our form of democracy at work. All the citizens get to do is vote them into office then it’s “sit down and shut up” folks. No one is held accountable for the mess. No one goes to jail for the damage left in thier wake. It is a priviledge no ordinary citizen has and what’s worse there’s nothing we can do but watch as it continues to worsen.
Where do I write the check? It would be about as good as theres….