Moved from http://barnson.org/node/884#comment-32901 -ed
NEW YORK (AP) — The National Debt Clock in New York City has run out of digits to record the growing figure. As a short-term fix, the digital dollar sign on the billboard-style clock near Times Square has been switched to a figure — the “1” in $10 trillion. It’s marking the federal government’s current debt at about $10.2 trillion.
According to the debt clock today, your family’s share is now $86,017.
I’d like to think that this one blog thread alone has done a decent job of showing just how fast and disastrous the U.S. economic picture has grown bleak. I attribute this to one thing – the Bush administration. For years now the state of economic and budget management affairs have grown weak and I feel like the Republican party in the White House has perpetrated one big avoidance tactic, focusing everyone’s attention on anything but the disaster-in-waiting.
Correction…
Correction: I am responsible now for myself, my wife, four children, and my mother.
As of this moment, the debt clock said my share was $33,614.54. Since I’m responsible for my family, that means I actually have $235,301.78 worth of national debt to pay off.
That’s almost exactly the same as a really nice, 2500 square foot home on the west side of the Salt Lake valley on a quarter acre.
The government has now forced me to, effectively, buy a house and pay the interest on it until the T-bills expire.
No wonder I paid well over $20,000 in taxes last year, even after very rigorous deductions.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Another data point…
John McCain wants to “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.” At a cost of $1M per cruise missile, that’s pretty expensive. Barack Obama wants to initiate talks with Iran, with the final cost of flying some Iranians to the US for talks. Even if they don’t fly coach, it will be cheaper.
John McCain wants to tax my health benefits as income to pay for the bailout bill. Barack Obama wants to cut back military spending on foreign wars, which would pay for the bailout bill by itself.
I believe a vote for John McCain is a vote to continue bleeding money, writing endless IOUs to Social Security, and devaluing the dollar. I believe a vote for Barack Obama, while he is sure to have economic troubles in office, is a vote for sane spending and a stop to the pillaging of my bank account to benefit a few extremely wealthy government defense contractors.
Either way, though, we need a president who will stop our country losing $600Bn a year just to interest payments on our national debt. Our entire government revenue is only $2.45T per year, and the budget would be balanced if not for this massive interest expenditure. And most of that comes from raiding Social Security and writing IOUs to the SSA…
My two cents 🙂
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Matthew P. Barnson
My one sense
If I ran for President, my single platform, my major election platform, would be for the United States to stop feeling like it needs to be a world superpower. Why do we have to be a world superpower? Why do we have to be the most powerful and mighty country on the planet?
Instead, how about a President coming into power and worrying about fixing problems here before trying to fix problems everywhere else around the world.
Look at some of the most prosperous and stable countries on the planet. You don’t see them out trying to police every corner of the world. I think adopting this philosophy would be a simple but powerful approach to fixing the country’s problems.