National Debt Hits Record $11 Trillion
(AP / CBS)
To be exact, the Debt now stands at $11,033,157,578,669.78. Divide it by the U.S. population and it comes up to over $36,000 in debt for every man, woman and child among us.
And the government is running up mountains of debt with increasing speed. It took just over 5 ? months for Uncle Sam to go another trillion dollars deeper in debt since hitting $10-trillion last September 30th. It's the fastest jump in U.S. history.
The hundreds of billions of dollars being spent as part of the federal bailout of the financial markets is a leading factor in the rapid increase. Over $400-billion in debt has been accrued in the 57 days since President Obama took office.
And the federal budget he unveiled last month projects even faster increases in the National Debt. It'll hit $12.7-trillion by the end of the fiscal year on September 30th. The Administration's four year estimate shows that by the end of September 2012, the Debt will have soared to $16.2-trillion – which amounts to nearly 100% of the projected Gross Domestic Product that year.
The U.S. is running up so much debt so quickly, some investors are worried. Over the weekend, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who says his country has about a trillion dollars invested in U.S. Treasury notes, said he wanted a guarantee.
President Obama said Wen's got nothing to worry about.
"Not just the Chinese government, but every investor, can have absolute confidence in the soundness of investments in the United States," he said on Saturday.
That's because the U.S. government's power to tax stands behind all of its debt. If Uncle Sam ever needs a bailout, then as now, taxpayers get nailed.
It took the U.S. government 191 years – from 1791 until 1982 – to run up its first trillion dollars in debt. The second and third trillions got on the scoreboard much more quickly – each in just four years.
By the time George W. Bush was inaugurated in 2001, the National Debt stood at $5.7-trillion. He ran up more debt faster than nearly all of his predecessors combined: just under $4.9-trillion.
The National Debt stood at $10.6-trillon on the day Barack Obama took office. But if his budget projections are accurate, he'll run up nearly as much government debt in four years as President Bush did in eight.
(CBS)
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It will be over 20 by 2015
30 by 2020
and 80 by 2030
Stupid Americans could elect Ron Paul, but they won't. They will get the government they deserve.
God make your life so progressive as for as you have started your partnership deal with the third party ,and also it would make happy to me the your news part which you will add in your site.
thanks for article.
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<a href="http://www.debtfreecentre.com" rel="dofollow">Debt Relief</a>
We should keep in mind that between the time Bush II took office and the time he left, the debt went from $4.9 trillion to $10.6 trillion. If you do the math for that, our debt more than doubled under Bush II, it went up 216%. Why did this happen, well, that's easy. Bush simultaneously cut taxes for the rich and started two wars which have been completely financed by debt.
There are two and only two things we can do to stop this nonsense:
1. Go back to the same kind of graduated income tax system that we had under the Eisenhowever administration, when the percentage of Americans classified as "middle class" was at its highest. In other words there were very few super-rich and also very few poor.
2. Stop financing wars by taking us further into debt. Please remember too that neither of these wars nor the tax cuts were initiated under any kind of majority of the Democratic Party, and the tax cuts were passed by a simple majority under the Senate's "Reconciliation" procedure.
If we look further into the history of the national debt, say over the past 50 years, 66% of the total national debt as of the end of 2009 was the responsiblity of GW Bush, not of Barack Obama.
Over those 50 years in fact, 83% of the total national debt, that is the money still being carried on the books, which we or our progeny will have to pay, was incurred during Republican Administrations. Why has this happened? Well, there seems to have been the notion put abroad starting with R. Reagan that if you cut taxes, you will collect more taxes. It didn't work then and it certainly did not work under Bush II nor any of the Republican presidents who preceded him.
How are we going to pay this back? That is simple. We must go back to a graduated tax structure with our federal income tax in which everyone pays their fair share. Under Eisenhowere, the upper tax bracket was taxed at a rate of 90%. Before Reagan took over and abolished that system of taxation, the top bracket was at 70%.
Now, before everyone runs to the hills or buries their money in the back yard, ask yourself, am I among the super-wealthy, among that top 1% that now owns so much of our country but pays so little tax? I suppose that for most of us, the answer is no. So, for the most of us, those higher tax brackets would never even remotely begin to kick in.
I ask you - if you make $30,000 a year and pay 30% of that to the federal government, that leaves you $21,000 to pay for everything that you must have to be housed, fed, transported, schooled, and insured. There will be not much left over, right? Well, let's think for a minute. If you made $30 Billion a year (and there are people who make that much), andd were taxed at 30% (and assuming you paid the full 30% and didn't use any "loopholes" that are available only to the super-rich,) you would pay a tax of $9 billion, leaving you with $21 billion to pay for housing, food, transportation, schooling, and health care. Which do you think feels the bite of that 30% harder, the $30,000 a year person, or the $30 Billion a year person? So, that is why a graduated income tax makes sense. #1 We need it just to keep up with maintenance of basic public infrastructure - i.e. like keeping bridges from falling down. Right now what is left of the middle class is being squeezed and squeezed just to keep up with those things. #2. We need it to begin to pay off the national debt which is largely due to presidents who cut taxes to benefit their rich friends, and we need a tax structure that approximates the same amount "pain" that each person paying the tax would experience. Back when America was the undisputedly strongest nation in the world, that is how we paid our taxes. Now, we have everything from bridges to schools falling down, a medical system rated 37th in the world, and a rapidly disappearing middle class. Serious tax reform-shall we call it going back to the Eisenhower tax system - is what is required.