April 1, 2008
Inside The National Debt Control Room
An Exclusive Look At How The Government Manages A Crushing $9 Trillion In Debt
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The American Debt Machine
The national debt is expected to reach $10 trillion next year, which means it will have nearly doubled this decade. Will future generations be forced to foot the bill? Anthony Mason reports.
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Eye To Eye: America's Debt
"Only On The Web": Anthony Mason takes an inside look at the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt, where the financial lifeblood of the U.S. government is tightly managed.
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Inside the national debt control room - a place TV cameras have never gone before. (CBS)
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Credit Crunch
Feeling the squeeze? Here's a look at actions and statements from key players in Washington.
CBS News entered the auction room of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt -- the first time a TV camera has ever been allowed inside.
"So what all these people are doing is monitoring the bidding that's coming in from all the different dealers," said Undersecretary of the Treasury Anthony Ryan.
It is where the U.S. government raises the money it needs to pay its bills. In other words, it is the world's biggest borrower flashing its credit cards.
"There is real money at stake," Ryan said. "Today we're auctioning off $13 billion of 10-year Treasury notes."
Treasury notes are basically IOUs that the government pays back with interest. In this auction, that amounts to a $13 billion loan. Without that money, and a few of these auctions every week, the government would shut down. Debt is now this nation's lifeblood.
Who's buying the debt?
"Well, a lot of people," Ryan said.
Pension funds, mutual funds, individuals, institutions and foreign governments compete to buy the U.S. treasuries by offering the cheapest interest rate.
"You're trying to get the lowest interest rate for the U.S. government?" Mason asked.
"That's right," Ryan said.
How much money passes through the room every year?
"Approximately $4 trillion," Ryan said.
That's nearly half of what America owes the world - now a mind-numbing $9.3 trillion.
There was a time when the cash the U.S. government needed for its daily operations was kept in a Treasury Department vault, across the street from the White House. But there isn't a safe in the world big enough to do that anymore, because the national debt is growing at nearly $1 million a minute.
"It's $31,027.00 per American," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "We have great risk that we're gonna become a mediocre country that's in debt and we're gonna handcuff and put a millstone around the next two generations because we won't act like adults now."
"I think the concern about the national debt is what we're doing with it," said Charles Wheelan, author of Naked Economics.
Last year alone, the United States spent $430 billion just on interest payments - that's nearly as much as we spent on education.
"Albert Einstein called compound interest one of the great wonders of the world. It adds up really fast," Wheelan said. "And I'm not sure we fully appreciate, either on the public or on the private level, how quickly you can get in borrowing trouble."
The heavy bidding in the auction shows U.S. debt is highly desirable.
"And at least so far this has always been a viable investment?" Mason asked.
"It has indeed. We have never defaulted," Ryan said. "And we have always paid interest on time. And we have always repaid principle."
But some see a day of reckoning approaching, when the world loses faith in the free-spending U.S. economy, when interest rates soar, when the United States finally sinks under the weight of its own debt.
"Is this the most likely scenario? No," Wheelan said. "Is it something we should be planning for? Absolutely."
The Treasury's auction room is kept secret because any disruption would send shock waves through the world financial markets. In fact, during every debt auction two back-up rooms, in New York and West Virginia, are always on standby.
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Because of the Bu$h Tax Cuts for the RICH!!!!!!!!
Thanks Repugs.
You drove the US toward mediocrity!
'' .. don''t dance get well feed world get sick tax world hike naked dance dressed porn songs rallyed round sick beds that swim and drift spore bloom weed dragon trail fickle first aid lunch farm cottage studio trail crossing yseedsberry trail group subsistence farm trails .. ''
'' .. there''s a 99.999...% chance i did not magically erupt in the middle of endless oblivion, but if i did not erupt in the middle of endless oblivion, then tere is a 99.infin9% chance that i can erupt magically in the middle of a endless oblivion anytime what i choose .. ''
'' .. it was difficult to provide food and medicine to each and all when all knew how to farm, now no one knows .. it''s easy silly, just add food and air and water, like raiding a proverbial fridge except for a bunch of flowers instead .. ''
'' .. book of physics is but 1 bursting bubble in whirlpools of burstbubble factorys, as when we alter physics by setting goals of low probability that we achieve by forgetting they exist as we think of any & all else .. ''
'' .. to be sane is to chase lazy naked folk around for switching .. ''
'' .. thank you congress & networks, your multi trillion dollar baby saving nuke bio chem stealth ray death tax dress strip cuff cage rough stuff freak famine spank nuke stick stone rant rave cop troop rage slave prisonet of dare shock awe camp armagedon extravaganza saved my life & soul .. ''
'' .. they own all''s to own, yet their stuff lie all round undiscovered, hope they call when ready to meet all their children unmet .. ''
'' .. wish i''d never heard of holy daughter player girls what cure notlazy notnaked notignorant notprofane notblemished notpromiscuous unholy father coach men, ****** are horrid .. ''
'' .. oxygen''s surgery, 120 - 240 deep breaths minmum each 24 hr, unless starving houseguests .. ''
'' .. well, i wanted to crack bones of crowds of infant & toddlet volunteers begging & pleading for it to such extent they mostly crack their own bones, but i taxed adults against will instead for some mumbled quietly disgruntled .. ''
'' .. $2 - $33 tips donations each night sharing 33 new dances & blooms at 33 new sick bed party villages of 75 to 300 folk each, 1.5 mile avg between most villas, 7500 m around sea, 5 months all way round .. ''
'' .. the stock holders are happy for we are trying to succeed at feeding the world by first refusing almost all volunteers, and then making everyone pay for lunch .. as well we are investing enourmusly in the spanking of lazy naked kids that show at the trail crossings for to hold hands with sick beds and weave bouquets of free food and medicine for each and all forever and ever more .. too we have succeeded in failing to produce qualified producets by producing products ourselfs and refusing to shopgift the answers to the questions asked by the unqualified producets that seek a consult .. to round out the top four, instead of offering to pay off the defaulted debts to others by investing in ourselfs a small refundable up-front deposit, we have accepted relatively infinite debt by selling stocks with all but a promise to pay dividends forever though the vast majority what make such promises inevitably bankrupt within a few short years .. and in closure, we''re taking all the market share tax money armor weapons alcohol and parades away from the smallest children and babys and giving it to the soldiers, for soldiers don''t tend to starve to death and smallest children and babys do .. ''
is this public info? if not, why?