The U.S. public debt is currently $9 trillion. That's an average debt for 303 million U.S. residents of about $30,000, or for 135 million U.S. taxpayers of about $67,000. (The numbers are about six times bigger if we add unreported U.S. liabilities.) This debt is being financed by our children and by the rest of the world, at the cost of U.S. influence in the world arena.
U.S. debt has grown 14-fold in real terms over the past 65 years. It grew five-fold during World War II and since Reagan's accession it has grown another 350 percent. Under Reagan the United States flipped from being the world's largest creditor nation to being the world's largest debtor nation. The growth of the national debt slowed and briefly reversed during the Clinton years, but then resumed its rapid upward march.
More here ...
My take on it: To help understand the mortgaging off of your country by the "fiscally responsible", "government-is-the-problem", conservative Reagan Republicans -
- Ronald Reagan was in office from 1981 to 1989
- George H. W. Bush was in office from 1989 to 1993
- William Clinton was in office from 1993 to 2001
- George W. Bush was elected to serve from 2001 to 2009
Match the dates above with the increases in the debt to which your children have been obligated. Look for the trends and for any attempts at reversal. Note who was playing fast and loose with your children's credit card and who understood that debt always has to be repaid ... someday.
"Tax-and-Spend" has been turned into an epithet. What it really means is that you raise the money now to take care of current obligations. Since Reagan "Tax-and-Spend" has been replaced by "Borrow-and-Spend" but those who implemented the policy don't call it that. They have mortgaged your country to the hilt, extended tax cuts to whose who need them least (Warren Buffett pays a 15% tax burden on the income from his billions while his $40,000/year secretary pays about a quarter of her wages in taxes). It's all done for the sake of maintaining a "strong" consumer economy. The net effect is we have put off the bills until a later date ... we're paying the interest along the way ... but it's an adjustable rate mortgage and the balloon payments are starting to hit in the form of a dollar that's worth less today than it was yesterday.
It's akin to you mortgaging your home to the hilt so you can drive a Porsche, put wide screen HDTVs in every room and keep up with the fashion trends you see in Cosmo and GQ ... while the company you work for keeps finding ways to pay you less and less real income. If I suggested you should welcome those circumstances, you'd tell me I was being irrational. However, that's just what's been happening since 1981 on a national scale.
The people who brought you these wonderful circumstances would have you believe that running a national government is different than managing a family budget. The only difference I can see are the number of zeros to the left of the decimal point. There are only two ways for a government to raise money. one is to levy taxes and the other is to borrow against the future. Tax cuts always sound great. We all hate to pay taxes - even us Libertards. But the fact of the matter is, if you're not paying the bills with taxes, then you're borrowing to pay the bills.
The government in a democracy is not someone else. In a democracy, YOU are the government. The bills are yours. They represent the things you need and want in terms of educational systems, highways and infrastructure, police security and the myriad of other things that we do for ourselves collectively because we cannot do them for ourselves individually.
So, quick question. How long would your "lifestyle" last if you started paying all your bills with a credit card and then only paid the credit card company the minimum payment every month?
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