Saturday, January 16, 2010

Should we worry about the National Debt?

Many argue that the National Debt is growing too large that the United States will eventually be crushed under the weight of its own spending. Others feel that the debt is an acceptable and even necessary evil.

Below are two websites that might provide insight into the two sides of the issue.

43 comments:

Every thinking citizen should worry about the National Debt. For it has many different effects:

1. the government forces tax payers to produce interest payments

2. only rich individuals and privileged institutions can buy government bonds to benefit from secure interest payments

5. the State passes its own power to create money to the banks — at the cost of its citizen.

Is that not enough to worry?

Good luck with spreading the word!

Sabine, Organiser

Forum for Stable Currencies

Before President Bush took office, our country had a surplus. Bush decided to take advantage of that surplus and issue tax cuts. He continued to do this and to increase government funding for programs such as Medicare. Then, Bush decided to launch the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. As we entered the Iraq War, Bush still cut taxes while he was increasing military spending. This led to a budget deficit. Bush never increased taxes to compensate and the war never ceased, thus the gap continued to grow. The debt is a problem that we must address now. I understand that our debt is considered average in comparison to other countries; however, we are a larger nation with larger debts that will multiply at a much faster rate. The debt is already 12 trillion dollars. The government is in trouble and in order to save it we must stop focusing on the now and see the long-term problems. There is no quick fix to this large downturn so we have to work on long run crises such as healthcare. Governmental action must be taken to prevent a depression. I believe the government has to stop its rampant borrowing, increase taxes for money that it will use to pay back its debts and try to save money. Once the government is on its way to a brighter future, then we can focus on spending to help the people and encouraging consumer spending in order to increase aggregate demand. Government spending and taxes should increase, and we should stop giving tax cuts to the rich to lessen the rich-poor gap. We have had setbacks in our economy as it is the natural cycle, but this is the largest recession weve had in a while. Unemployment is in the double digits and our lack of credit and spending is hurling us down a path we do not wish to take. Yes, in time I am sure the economy will recover. But if left to run out its course, what will we lose in the meantime. How much worse will the recession get? How many jobs, houses and meals will we pay for it? Do we really want a repeat of 1929? If the government does not step in now, we may have a frighteningly dangerous future ahead of us.

1.Exactly who or what is responsible for the growing U.S. National Debt?

After President George W. Bush took office, in 2001, he passed a large amount of tax cuts. These tax cuts continued even after the Iraq war started in 2003. Causing there to no longer is a surplus like there had been in the previous years with President Bill Clinton. Instead this caused a large amount of deficits, which have been continuously rising and continue to rise today.

After President Barrack Obama took office in 2009 he passed laws to take charge and fix the economy, from the current recession. President Obama passed laws that would increase government spending and decrease taxes in order to fix the recession. Though it will increase demand, and ultimately correct the recession, this plan will cause an increase in the national debt.

As government spending continues to increase due to the war and the recession, so does the debt. The United States have currently reached a debt of approximately S12 trillion.

2.Is the debt a problem that we need to address immediately or is the debt a natural occurrence in our economic system.

Yes, we should worry about the national debt and try to address it immediately.

The drastically increasing of national debt is a growing problem in the United States. If it continues to increase the government might have to cut government programs such as Medicare or social security. The fact the baby boomers are now getting ready for Medicare and Social Security will further more end to the increasing of the debt. Further more, the cutting of programs will result in the decrease standard of living in the United States. The United States are borrowing increasing amounts of money in order to pay for their debts.

Ultimately there will be nobody left willing to from, Chinese has already threatened to stop. If this agrees it could have a massive effect to the nation. We currently have bonds, which people can buy and it allows the United States to turn over debt, as long as we continue to sell bonds the united states should be okay, but if bond are not sold the nation could run in to a serious problem.

The problem of the increasing debt has to be dealt with, before it becomes detrimental for the economy as well as the nation itself.

The growing national dept is largely the governments (not just president Bushs) fault because the government is ultimately the one entity that can choose to increase taxes or decrease government spending. But it is also the peoples fault for the national dept. It is the peoples fault because the people have created an environment where anyone who wants to increase taxes or decrease government spending will not be elected to office.

The dept is a problem that should be confronted, but it is not an urgent one because our countries national dept compared to our GDP is average when compared to other countries. We should begin to try and solve the problem only because it may become an irreversible problem down the road.

$12 Trillion seems like a daunting number, but after we look past the 0s, we can see that the national debt is not a problem that needs to be addressed immediately, but rather a natural occurrence in our economic system.

Since the debt is an accumulation of federal deficit of each year, I dont think responsibility for the debt can be pinpointed to one person. However, there are several factors that contributed to our current situation. In general, our debt arose from governmental spending in excess of its tax revenue. We can see yearly deficits during republican or conservative presidencies such as George W. Bushs administration, since they support tax cuts, which pleases the people since we feel wealthier as a result. Combine this republican ideology with governmental spending on massive social programs such as social security and medicare, and a debt is created.

Contrary to what many believe, debt can actually be a benefit. By pulling future income to the present, we allow ourselves to immediately improve our standard of living. The question then becomes what level of debt can we attain before reaching the red zone, which many believe we are currently in? The answer is that we are still well in the green zone; our

75% national debt/GDP percentage is average compared to other modern economies. Please use the link below to refer to a graph.

zfacts.com/metaPage/lib/National-Debt-GDP-L.gif

As you can see, our percentage is roughly the same as that of the 90s and less than 1950. Sure, it may have rose in the past few years, but take into account we have just switched political ideologies and presidencies (Bush[republican]->Obama[democrat]); most of the rising debt is due to republican presidencies (both Bushs and Reagan). Perhaps a shift to a democratic president will lower the percentage, as seen with Clinton succeeding H. W. Bush. In this new era, there is no need for alarm as we are still not yet in the red zone.

A big deal is made of our foreign debt, but in reality it is a trifle. Debt held by foreigners is a result of temporarily lending dollars to fund the US, but eventually, dollars will be spent back into the US economy since they cant be spent in another economy. Also, the news has misconstrued the severity of foreign debt, such as the political cartoon on the original post; US debt to China is only

5% of the total debt.

Finally, to satisfy the pessimists of longer life spans and the invasion of the baby boom generation into retirement, funding what seems to be an overwhelming challenge for social programs actually only requires minute changes. According to one source, increasing the social security tax rate by 3-4% can fund social security forever at todays benefit structure. It is also important to realize that in order to reach the final goal, a variety of small changes will most likely be used rather than a sole increase in taxes, such as later retirement ages or reallocations of the overall federal budget.

Thus, I believe that the issue of national debt has been bloated. After an assessment of our current situation, there is no need for alarm, nor is there any evidence of a tenable trend that shows us heading towards destruction. Dont stress. Carpe Diem. D

I feel like a true American blaming people for our problems without take any responsibility.

The first group person i would like to blame is the elderly who lived much longer than they were supposed cause economic strain on the economy. Due to programs like Medicare and Social Security the debt will rise to such extremes that the US government would implode upon itself. The solution to this problem is rather simple. We could either raise the taxes (but that would anger people and the people of the US never do anything that would be uncomfortable to their daily lives) or we could Increase Government spending, Increase the retirement age, and decrease the benefits one would receive from Medicare and Social Security.

The second group i would like to blame is big business who shipped all American factories over seas to the incredibly cheap labor force due to low health standards and low if any form of minimum wage. By doing this you closed down the factories in the US decreasing GDP. This than caused Americans to buy foreign made goods shipping capital over to countries such as China. This also caused health problems due to the lack of quality of the products sending people to the hospital where some where than dropped by their insurances causing medical bankruptcy. A solution to this problem would be to decrease the cost of labor in America. This would require 3 Key factors:Health Reform to stop workers from demanding health benefits, Cheaper land to build factories on through Government incentives,and a tariff on foreign goods to make the US buy American goods.

Finally the George W. Bush administration is at fault as well. Due to Bush declaring a war and refusing to increase taxes in order to pay for it he needed money. He began borrowing large sums of money from China in a span of 8 years we when from a surplus to a deficit of 13 trillion. Despite numerous warnings from his financial advisers he still refused to raise taxes or do anything for that matter to decrease the pressure on the debt. After watching the country burn for 8 years there is little we can do but pray Obama can do all he promised in he campaign. He needs to pass H.R. II to remove all medical related problems, put Detroit back to work to reduce Americans sending their money over seas, and end the war on terror as soon as possible to stop wasting money on war related issues.

With all that said however, i still dont think that this is a big problem because though we may be reliant on China to continue to buy our debt they cant stop because we are the main source of their foreign exports. Basically we are stuck in a never ending circle of debt and even though China can make hollowed threats to stop buying our debt they never actually could without bankrupting themselves.

Our national debt is the result of our government spending more each year. While it was under the Presidency of George Bush that the debt grew enormously, it is not all of his fault. The whole government is to blame for allowing this to happen and not doing anything except for sitting back and watching it grow. Bush decided to fund a war while still giving businesses tax cuts in hope that businesses would pay employees more, which in most cases did not work. It is also because of these businesses intentions along with the government that our debt grew.

Our national debt is over $12 trillion. It doesnt matter what you have, 12 trillion of anything is too much. It is also the fact that the debt continues to grow rapidly that makes a huge problem. If we dont find a way to stop this increase then the government will have no choice but to either tax incredible amounts of money or cut government programs like medicare.

1. Our $12 trillion of national debt is not something that was acquired quickly, and therefore no single person is responsible for it. Our debt is the result of multiple consecutive years of the government spending more than it receives in taxes, beginning during the Bush Administration, when they took advantage of the surplus in Clintons administration to offer tax cuts to people. These tax cuts combined with the expensive war in Iraq contributed to the U.S. national debt, and soon social security will become an issue and will greatly add to the debt. Many of the baby boomers are retiring soon and all of these people are going to need social security and Medicare. This generation of elderly people is also living longer than previous generations, placing a larger strain on these programs. The current generation of tax payers will not be enough to pay for all of them, and as a result, more money will have to be spent by the government to compensate, which would quickly increase the debt.

2.The national debt is not a problem that needs to be addressed immediately, but it should be addressed soon. Debt is a natural occurrence in any economy, and allows you to take money which you would earn later, and use it now to increase your standard of living. However, just because it provides this benefit does not mean it can be ignored. As a percentage of out GDP, our national debt is a little above average compared to the rest of the world, but with a debt of $12 trillion and a GDP of about $14 trillion, it seems that soon out debt will surpass our GDP, and that will be a huge problem for the country and its economy. This could cause the unemployment rate to become even higher than it is now, and would not help our economy get out of the recession we are currently in. In order to avoid this, the government needs to cut back on unnecessary spending, which there is certainly a lot of. Another possible option is to cut back on the benefits provided by social security and Medicare, or increase the retirement age, which would mean it would be less expensive to pay for the retired people and this could help reduce our debt.

Matt Solomon

1.Exactly who or what is responsible for the growing U.S. National Debt?

Even though a number of people blame George W. Bush for the growing US national debt, I do not believe that one person is solely responsible for it. A series of tax cuts, general public opinion against tax increase, too much spending in social security such as medicaid and medicare, and wars in Iraq and Iran are all responsible for the US governments tradition of deficit spending, which eventually accumulated approximately 12 trillion dollars of the national debt.

2.Is the debt a problem that we need to address immediately or is the debt a natural occurrence in our economic system.

Yes, the accumulation of such large amount of national debt is a problem that we need to address immediately. Huge amount of debt means huge amount of interest. As the national debt increases annually, government has to spend more and more money just to pay the interest on national debt. Considering that the national debt is growing so rapidly, in the very near future, we will have to see our government spending most of our taxes to pay interest. The government has to change now. It should stop giving tax cuts while running into deficit. It should also cut government spending rather than blatantly borrowing money from foreign nations, hoping that our future generation will be able to pay it back.

1. Exactly who or what is responsible for the growing U.S. National Debt?

I believe that there is not one single person that is responsible for the growing U.S. National Debt, but rather the collaboration of the activities that have occurred in our government over the last several years. I think that George W. Bush had a lot to do with it since a lot of what he did consisted of cutting taxes and putting politics ahead of economics. Social security, Medicare, and Medicaid also played a large role in contributing to the National Debt as well. The U.S. government has been known to have budget deficits which I believe truly allowed for the National Debt to grow to over $12 trillion.

2. Is the debt a problem that we need to address immediately or is the debt a natural occurance in our economic system.

The debt is a problem that the government should address immediately. The more debt we have equals more spending and more interest. This debt that we have attained over the years has put the government into a corner per say. The government is almost forced to just keep spending because it seems to be something that they have believed to work over the last decade, however; the government needs to realize that the more spending we do the more of a burden we are going to have on our shoulders. This National Debt is increasing at a very fast speed and government spending needs to be cut in order for this to be put under control and for this $12 trillion debt to finally decrease instead of increase.

The growing national debt that the United States has accumulated in one of the most serious problems our country faces. Through the deficits that our government has run over time, the debt has increased to the level it is now. Recently, the number has increased exponentially. This can be attributed chiefly to the policy of the Bush administration. After 9/11, we began the War on Terror that has cost our country hundreds of billions of dollars. Any war comes with a huge price tag and usually a government will have to cut funding elsewhere or increase taxes to deal with the increase in cost. However, the Bush Administration instead decided to cut taxes, lowering the governments income in a time of war and causing the government to borrow massive amounts of capital in order to finance the war. The combined effect of increasing government spending and lowering taxes caused the current deficit we face today.

The threat of our looming national debt is great. It could cause the collapse of the world economy. Today will sell our debt to countries with the promise that we will eventually pay them back. However, countries will not continue to buy our debt forever. If we are not responsible with our spending, our lenders will stop lending and will cause our country to go bankrupt. And with the collapse of the most powerful economy in the world, the rest will fall apart as well.

1.Exactly who or what is responsible for the growing U.S. National Debt?

I believe that the national debt is not one person, or groups own fault. It is a result of several activities and actions taken by this country within the past several years. President Bush took over in Office with a surplus. After 9/11/01 we entered the war on terror. Less than two years later, we embarked in Operation Iraqi Freedom. During both wars, President Bush insisted on giving the citizens of the United States tax breaks. The problem was that at the time, no one was going to complain that their taxes are not high enough! It is now believed that the future generations will eventually have to pay off our debt with their own working money.Another contributing factor to this current economic crisis is the fact that people are now living longer. If people are living longer, more money is poured into programs such as social security and medicare.

2.Is the debt a problem that we need to address immediately or is the debt a natural occurrence in our economic system?

Yes, the problem should not be put off any longer. The longer it is postponed, the more of our future generations will have to pay for our debts. It seems as if the debt is a natural occurrence in our economic system, however there are some things we can do as a country to strengthen the problem up a decent amount. So much money is spent on both wars we are fighting in. We should reduce spending for other counties and help fix our own country first. The government should take slow steps such as cut the spending in the war, reduce the amount of money used for social security and medicare, and begin to rebuild our economy by unfortunately taxing at a little higher rates. Something needs to eventually be done, why wait any longer? The longer we wait, the more debt we will be in. It is better to make slight changes at an average pace, rather than rapid changes all at once. Whichever method the U.S. government chooses to help fix the economy and the trillion dollar debt, it is sure that U.S. citizens will not like the expenses that are going to arise in order to pay off the national debt.

1. Exactly who is resposible for the growing U.S ational Debt?

I feel that the growing national debt can not be blamed on one person, but on a series of poor government spending choices throughout the years. First, Geaorge W. Bush chooses to cut taxes to please the American population. Towards the end of his first term, Gearge W. Bush declares war on Iraq but refuses to raise taxes to fund the war. This created a situation where the government was spending money they did not have. The ecod poor decision was to spend over 1 trillion dollars on an economic bailout. This was paid for with more money we did not have. Finally, the 1 trillion dollar healthcare reform is still spending money we dont have.

2. Is the debt a problem that we need to address immediately or is the debt a natural occurrence in our economic system.

Yes, the national debt is a huge problem that we need to address as soon as possible. As of last year, the national debt was around 80% of our total GDP. With all the manufacturing being done outside the United States and all capital being spent on products coming from foreign countries, our GDP is not set tpo rise anytime soon while the national debt isrising faster than ever. Soon, the U.S will have a negative production where the national debt is higher than what we as a country produce. This will eventually lead to the government beingg forced to cut important social programs like social security and medicare.

No one person is responsible for the national debt. The government sometimes needs to run a deficit in order to boost the economy to get it out of a recession. Since our existence, the government has used fiscal policy to manipulate the economy and try to keep it on the right path. When George Bush entered office in 2001, Clinton had been previously running a surplus. Bush decided that he should cut taxes to help the economy. He continually cut taxes even while the U.S. was in a war and the government was spending more and more money. Although the deficit is not entirely Bushs fault, his policies created a budget deficit which is still growing today.

The national debt is not something to be worried about. Most other modern economies have a debt and ours is average compared to the size of the country. The debt is also a product of the government using fiscal policy to boost the economy. But, if the deficit keeps growing, the U.S. government could have a huge problem on their hands and could lead to the collapsing of the government.

1. I believe that their are many reasons to why the U.S. National Debt is noticably growing more and more every year. One major reason to this cause was when president Bush took office in 2001. Since Bush was so concerned with pleasing the people, he decided that the best idea was to cut taxes. Because the U.S. economy had a surplus at this time, Bush did not think that cutting taxes would eventually destroy the economy. Additionally, he wanted to please the elders more increasing funds relating to Medicare and Social Security. This became a further problem when the United States decided to go to war with Iraq. Even being at war, Bush decided to still cut more and more taxes and increase the government spending on the war. At time of war, it is not the best idea to cut more and more taxes when your trying to build a strong army. Eventually, this led the economy into a major deficit, and Bush still didnt increase the taxes to make up for the increase in debt. Although Bush is the one that is usually blamed, I believe the government has the right to be blamed too. Overall, the government didnt do anything to stop Bush on his economic decisions.

2. ALthough i believe that debt is a natural occurance, I dont think that it should be ignored. When the numbers cross a certain point, like 12 trillion dollars, one should start to be worried. The United States debt is growing more and more and everyone should start to worry. With its numbers increasing, it can result in many problems for our future. Because the United States keeps borrowing money from other countries, eventually countries will realize the problem, and will cut off trading ties with the United States. Other options include increasing taxes dramatically, or cutting goverment spending and programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

To name all of the factors responsible for our ever-climbing national debt would require lists upon lists of factors. The United States economy as of late has taken a lax downturn, as government officials have not done well with keeping a balanced budget and managing its finances. During the Clinton administration, the United States government actually had a surplus of funds. However, when Bush took office he decided to issue tax cuts that the government could not afford to keep up as well as fund programs on borrowed funds. Most of the money in the US budget is money that has been borrowed from foreign countries such as China. Not only are we running up debt that we in theory eventually have to repay to those nations, somehow the money has to be replaced in our economy so our revenue does not plummet completely. However, it is not fair to place blame solely on the Bush administration and monetary affairs since then. It is a problem that encompasses every citizen in the country. Unfortunately, this generation has grown up believing that they can further their sustenance on credit, and not rushing to repay their borrowing. They have begun to let living beyond their means become their way of life. This attitude is quite pervasive, and of course has been reflected in the government. Another huge issue is the spending on programs previously unheard of by past generations. Since it is only in recent decades where the elderly have seen such long life expectancies, the idea of having such a huge financial obligation to programs such as Medicare is new for our country. It takes such an immense amount of money to keep up and since there are so many senior citizens in this country and they keep rising, a huge deficit has been added to the deficit that had already been in place. The biggest problem with these issues is that especially the latter is unprecedented, and since our government still does not have a grasp on how to handle the is huge financial obligation. This debt is something that the citizens of this country should worry about. Though there are those who argue that the our economy will just stabilize itself and that the debt will just somehow be eradicated, I feel that they are mistaken. Perhaps in the past when the debt values were not as huge this could have occurred, but this is the highest national debt in the history of this country and I really dont think that it is that simple. The poor judgement of the past generation will now be a weight on the shoulders of the next generation, as well will have to be the ones trying to figure out how to make the US seem financially strong in the eyes of foreign countries. We will not only have to find jobs in an unstable and constantly changing economy, we will also have to try and keep our countrys budget from going completely bankrupt. Perhaps if the figure was not so high it would not be as daunting, but it really terrifies me to know that by the time I am part of the work force my financial future could possibly be up in the air. Something needs to be done, and fast.

I feel that our national debt is a problem that should not be worried about in the short run. The $12 trillion debt that we now posses did not just appear over night. It came about due to the governments (Republican and Democrat alike) unchecked spending.

Yes, one of the main causes of this crisis is former President Bushs declaration of war on terror and refusal to raise taxes. This was a bad move on his part and proved that the well being of his political affiliations superceded the well being of his countrys economic state. However instead of trying to fix this debt, President Obama choose to continue this spending in the form of bailouts to major corporations, going against capitalist values.

Regardless of who or what caused this economic crisis, the only thing that will allow it to disapear is time.

1. A big federal deficit is the cause of a big national debt. National debt is nothing new—sure one can blame Bush and his legacy for these problems but truly debt has been around since the infant stages of the US. (Unfortunately, now the US debt increases by the amount it had late in the 18th Century roughly every hour, an approxiamte $70m)Because of the amount of entities the US gives money to, deficits eventually accumulated. The numbers owed adds up because of countries like Japan, China, and the UK. Regardless of this foreign debt, around 80% is owed to domestic companies or government factions and the rest is owed to foreign governments or businesses. Not to mention, little $700B dollar bail outs by the Federal Government to multi-billion dollar businesses that do not produce, can do some damage. If the government keeps itself fixated on these expenditures, less attention will be paid to those small businesses and domestic issues resulting in more people with no jobs.

2. I guess its not too bad in the short run. Through some kind of long process, the debt eventually becomes stimulated. Also, debt is a lower percentage of our GDP now than it was in the 1950s and 1960s, and the return on our debt is very high right now, meaning the amount of spending were doing is good. A lot of foreign countries are making money off of loaning money to the US, so its unlikely that they will cut off loaning. At least the money is being used for a few good things, like research, health education, the military, agencies, and public entitlements. In the long run, having too much debt is definitely not good. Debt keeps increasing, and all the potential energy can eventually and indefinitely lead to catastrophic results. Too much of something isnt good.

The debt began when president george W Bush took office. Prior to his presidency under Bill Clinton the United States experienced a surplus. President Bush cut taxes numerous times which became a problem when the war on terror started. The government kept spending money while they were taxing less,

Also our current 12 trillion dollar debt is increasing due to president obamas stimulus plan to bring the economy back to life. This will fix the recession but only continue to increase the national debt

I believe that the national debt is not any persons fault. Many people are blaming Bush for our debt. Yes it is true that Bush gave tax cuts but other people had to approve this. Second of all we had a surplus with Clinton but that doesnt mean that we didnt have debt. Its a cycle in regards to a surplus and deficit. The national debt is from the beginning of our country, so it is an accumulation of the years. For this reason the debt is not on fault on any one person or time period. Many people are involved in increasing the debt and most times it is necessary.

A larger percentage of the blame for our national debt can be entirely placed upon the American people. While it is impossible to do anything but run up the deficit by demanding large scale government spending and tax cuts, the American people refuse to elect anyone who decides to increase taxes or cut down on government programs.

1. Largely, President Bush is responsible for the start of the national debt because of his belief in large tax cuts. Though it seemed to help him in the polls, it did nothing to help the economy. Also, those in office ignored the connection between the cost of war while in Iraq and the tax cuts on the home front. They forgot that the economy could not handle to two simultaneously, and therefore, led to a larger and scarier budget deficit which grew into why we should worry about the national debt.

1. Realistically, the debt can not be attributed to one person, or even a group of people; it is some big number that has been growing since 1776. However, government deficit spending is mainly responsible for our ever increasing national debt. When Obama took office last year, the debt was approx. $10 US dollars, but now, it has grown to nearly $12 trillion in less than a year. But we must take into account the condition of the economy. As the economy collapsed into a recession, the government had to run massive deficits to help stimulate investment and boost customer confidence. Without all this extra spending, the downward swing in the business cycle could have lasted much longer than it did.

Running up the deficit and by default the debt is a required part of the economic cycle and no one person is solely responsible for it. There are certain kinds of spending which could be avoided which we can attribute to individuals, but the entire debt belongs to the American people.

2. The debt is a number, as I said before. It is just some big promise that the government has made to repay its loaners. I honestly doubt that we have ever paid back any principal on the debt and if weve lasted this long without paying anything back, then I dont think its a problem. Maybe someday China will get impatient and demand their money back, at which point well just go borrow from someone else to pay them back, or tell them to come get it. The debt is some arbitrary number which accounts for all the government spending that taxes didnt pay for. You need not worry.

While many different factors must be taken into account when pointing the blame for our nations immense national debt. The most blame can be placed on the national government. At the beginning of the Bush administration, extensive tax cuts were issued in order to take advantage of the budget surplus of the previous year. This would be fine except for the fact that the government immediately, and drastically increased spending. The war on Iraq began, leading to immense amounts of money being poured into the military and increases in spending for healthcare. Combining tax cuts and increased spending leads to the government running a budget decifit, and therefore increasing the national debt.

The national debt is something that we do not need to worry about as much as we do. While it is immense, it is a necessity to maintain a strong economy. Since all countries have some amount of dependence on each other, no country will refuse to loan another money to the point that its government fails. Relative to our GDP, the national debt percentage is average, but slowly rising. This means that it will eventually need to be resolved but not as suddenly as everyone believes.

The national debt can be seen as a part of the economic system, unfortunately, more recently this can not be the case. The mistakes of George W. Bushs economic policy of tax cutting while spending for a war in the middle east is the point at which you can say the debt began to spiral out of control. Without an increase in taxes collected, the U.S. needed to borrow money from other countries namely China, thus further spiraling the national debt out of a reasonable level.

The growing national debt of the United States is becoming a significant problem. This debt, that was brought about by the United States government, is beginning to grow out of control. The cause of this serious problem is the clashing of fiscal policy and politics. This is irresponsible on the governments part. If economic decisions are made with political consequences in mind, instead of the economic, then of course problems like a large national debt will occur. When you cut taxes just so you can say you did, even if there is a surplus when you start, you will eventually cause a recession. Their argument is that if you decrease taxes then spending would go down, but this is not the case. If people find they do not have to pay as much money in taxes they will use that money for other things like investments, which is the complete opposite of the desired effect. And if those problems are not enough, there is also the growing dependence on foreign countries that we borrow funds from. When all these factors are added together it could spell out disaster for the United States if some solution to these debts is not found. The debt may be a necessary evil when it is part of the cycle of debt and surplus, but when it reaches the extreme of twelve trillion and growing concern should be experienced by all.

1. The Deficit the United States currently has is the result of a combination of a natural occurrence in the economy, the war on terror, and large tax cuts. Out of the three of those I think only one of them is truly preventable, tax cuts. The Bush administration was irresponsible in making ridiculous tax cuts on the eve of a major war. However, the war on terror was something that, at least in my opinion, had to be done. If you believe that the US needed to respond to 9/11 then you have to deal with the deficit spending that goes along with it. This all combined with the fact that after the dot com bubble burst the economy was on a downturn and the government needed an expansionary fiscal policy in order to avoid high rates of unemployment.

It is easy to say that Bush is the cause of this economic disastor. The facts do remain that when he entered office our country had a surplus. Now after an 8 year term was complete, our country has a 12 trillion dollar debt. Bush did sink billions into an unnessesary war and also cut taxes for big business which also increased the debt by billions. However it is not all Bushs fault, we are all to blame. When bush stepped in the overall budget was a deficit, Clinton had just left a surplus for that year. A huge debt will always be the case in America due to the negative import/export loop.

SInce the turn of the 21st century, the United States has come to develop a national debt of about 12 trillion dollars and is still rising. The US government under George W. Bush should be responsible for the increase in the national debt. As we entered the Iraq War in 2003, Bush still cut taxes, to insure the people trust, while he was increasing military spending. Both these actions caused the deficit to sky-rocket, compared to our previous surplus under the CLinton administration.

The problem with the national debt will never go away; however, we must address this problem. We have become dependent on other countries (i.e. China) to help us out with our funding. We must create contractionary system to increase our surplus to slow and eventually stop this expontenial debt.

In my opinion there are two main groups to blame for the National Debt, the Governement and the taxpayer.

The average taxpayer is selfish and only desires to keep more and more of his money, but also expects the government to give him more money in the form of taxbreaks and welfare, just because he wants it. The taxpayer will only vote for government officials who promises these things.

The Government is responsible for doing what they want to remain in power, and not what is necessarily best for the Nation at the time.

The Government cannot remain in a state of constant expansionary policy because eventually, we will run a deficit too high that we cant possibly pay back, other countries will realize this and stope buying our bonds and continue to bail us out. And at that point paying debt will be the last thing on our minds because we will probably be in revolution over our completely collapsed economy. This would happen because all faith in our currency would fail, and since that is the only thing currently backing our dollars, our currency would become worthless throwing people into a state of panic, and most likely revolution.

In conclusion I believe that as of right now the debt of 12 trillion dollars is not drastically terrible. However, if it continues to grow at the rate it currently is, and nothing is done to stop it in the near future, (contractionary fiscal policy, raise in taxes, less government spending) I think that it is fair to say that we will most likely all be screwed.

Over the years national debt has been increasing exponentially. This is due to the accumulated federal deficit. Recently the government has been increasing spending much higher than their tax revenue creating a huge deficit. The combination of spending on medicare, medicaid, and the recently increased social security is causing this debt. This is just becoming a problem now because of the retirement of the baby boom generation. Tax cuts during the Bush administration have also added to the debt.

However, this debt is not as big a problem as proposed by so many. In comparison, our 75% is much smaller than other countries that are still surviving. The debt will eventually begin to go down if the right actions are taken. For example if the social security tax is raised by 3% or so, it will be enough to compensate for the increased cost to government for social security. As to the issue of foreign debt, it is a very small amount of the total debt. Plus the foreign debt will eventually even out since the countries that we borrow money from must then spend money in the US, taking away any debt. So I believe that the national debt is not a huge problem at the moment and it can be fixed if the right actions are taken, or if just change is made in the governments policies.