Congratulations to all of us. Very soon, the US national debt will surpass Sixteen Trillion Dollars. We owe the money. We, of course, are the citizens of the United States of America.
We’ve allowed those representing us in Congress to create a debt so large that each and every tax payer owes more than $140,000. Each and every citizen – each man, woman and child – owes almost $51,000. Each citizen owes $12,330 just in interest on our loan. There is no one else to pay. We are the citizen debtors.
There’s lots of numerical information on our debt clock, and every figure is a record-breaking number. Our Federal tax revenue is $2.374 trillion, but our Federal spending is $3.584 trillion. Our two largest expense items are Medicare/Medicaid at $790 billion and Social Security at $744 billion. We can pay for neither. Our total personal debt is $15.767 billion.
Sixteen trillion dollars is a lot of money. Let me help you get it in your head. Twelve days is a million seconds, and a billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds of time is 31,800 years. Neanderthals walked this earth one trillion seconds ago. Western civilization had not yet begun. The United States of American was not yet a dream.
Now our dream has turned into a nightmare. We owe sixteen trillion dollars. It makes my head hurt just to think about it. To me that seems a gargantuan, unmanageable and incomprehensible number. It seems to me, to be the madness of unprincipled, undisciplined and uncaring members of Congress. It seems that kind of problem, because it is.
There are three things you should know about this little problem. First, neither political party intends to pay off the debt. Second, our debt grows every day because we continue to borrow money and pay interest. Third, unless we take control, this behemoth will destroy America.
Sometimes we must look to the President for real leadership. Not THAT President!
The words of John F. Kennedy are more apt today than they were in 1960, when our debt was a paltry $286 billion: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
And Thomas Jefferson is perhaps the only man Kennedy might invite to one-up him: This Founding Father spoke true wisdom with these words: “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large-scale.”
I’m sorry guys, but we have been swindled by the worst generation of politicians ever elected. We need to get their attention, and we need to stop spending money we don’t have. There are sixteen trillion good reasons to do so.
Ross Puskar is the author of Founding Fathers Know Best the political satire now available for sale at Amazon and Barnes&Noble. You can follow Ross on Twitter and Facebook and you can subscribe to his blog and you can like FFKB on Facebook.
Ross,
I’m sure you meant “trillions” in the third paragraph, and yes the numbers are mind numbing. Social Security and Medicare are projected to consume $1.249 trillion of the budget in 2013 while bringing in $775 billion. Of course S.S. has that trust fund reserve to tap to help cover the difference…..oh no, politicians stole it. Coupled with these programs we must add the $255 billion in Medicaid and $711 billion in “other” mandatory programs to the 2013 budget for a total of $2.25 trillion in mandatory expenditures, versus projected Fed receipts of $2.80 trillion. These are the programs brought to us by our politicians, starting with S.S., Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and now the healthcare legislation, kinda makes one feel secure about the future doesn’t it.
The 2013 budget also has to include discretionary programs and that pesky interest on debt of $225 billion for an additional $1.32 trillion to the budget for a deficit for 2013 of $1.33 trillion. The ratio of Fed Debt to GDP will be 104.8% at the end of 2012, can anyone spell Greece.
Roll these numbers, from the 2010 Census, around a bit; 308 million citizens, 74 million under 18, 40 million over 65, for a “work force” of 194 million. But only 138 million filed tax returns and approximately 100 million folks actually “paid” taxes. What happened to the workforce, somewhere we lost 56 million workers, stay at home moms don’t account for that huge of a discrepancy. We also lost any tax revenue from 38 million workers and probably gave substantial refunds. The beat goes on with our politicians, to the tune of Doris Day’s hit “Que Sera, Sera”. But we the people can see the future, and those of us who pay the bills seem to be the only ones not willing to accept “What will be, will be”.
Randy, thanks for the corrections. Of course what’s most clear is “what will be… is a disaster” if we don’t stop them. We need to get Romney elected and let Ryan begin the process of fiscal sanity.