On the home page of this blog is a national debt counter. At the present this counter is just shy of $12 trillion. Take a minute and imagine the enormity of that number. That is around $40,000 for each living, breathing American. Yep, my 9 month old grandson owes his 40 grand too. Congrats, Dan! The wonderful thing is that counter is going to blow past $12 trillion like it was standing still. Because our government is continuing to borrow and spend money like a bunch of drunken sailors on shore leave (I recognize it from personal experience). Based on current projections these Rhodes scholars will add between $1 trillion to $2 trillion to that number each year for the foreseeable future.
At the risk of being accused of beating a dead horse I cannot overstate how wrong-headed this mentality is! The Chinese are already making noise concerning our fiscal stability. As they are one of the biggest lenders to the U.S. government any cutback in this source of cash can have a serious impact on our entire economy. They will probably continue to loan us money but you can bet the interest rate is going to go up as the risk increases. Eventually our government will end up at the mercy of anyone with some spare change to keep their bureaucracy breathing. The incredible thing is that nobody seems all that concerned about it.
So here is what young Dan and your grandchildren are looking at. On top of the aforementioned debt, let's say $20 trillion by the time The One finishes with us, you can add another $500 billion a year beginning in 2018 to shore up the social security shortfall for the boomers. Add at least twice that much each year beginning in 2025 for Medicare shortfall so that by 2030 when my grandson reaches the age of 21 this country will be at least $50 trillion in debt. This is assuming there is someone out there foolish enough to lend it to us. And, of course, the number of people sharing that burden will be considerably less than we have today because the boomers will be dead or retired. What an inheritance for the next generation!
History is going to judge my generation very harshly, I'm afraid, and it will be well deserved. We will have taken what our parents and the Greatest Generation built and squandered the treasures on a bag of not-so-magic beans. I just hope our grandchildren will have more sense than we had.
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2 comments:
Certainly you're not blaming all the nation's debt on this brand new administration? Because Bush's administration also "spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave." This is a cumulative problem.
I'm curious...how does our debt stack up against nations like Canada, England, France, etc...other places with "big government"?(I honestly don't know). It seems like other countries somehow manage to provide services for their citizens without crumbling economically, so we must be mismanaging in a lot of places.
No, I am blaming all government, both sides of the aisle. W really disappointed me in the way he folded the last two years. It is not so much the individuals but the culture in Washington. It's almost a pack mentality when it comes to spending money.
Your question about these other countries is a good one. The info can be found but I haven't researched it. I know that Great Brittan has a very high personal and corporate income tax rate and France has socialized many industries. Some night when I can't sleep I will research this and blog on it.
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