IOU $8.1 Trillion
Soaring national debt sucks funds from other needs
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...601310334/1069
(Gold9472: I'm glad at least that these trillions are safe and sound.)
January 31, 2006
You may have heard about the Findlay, Ohio, woman who died at age 98 and left her $1.1-million estate to the federal government to help pay down the national debt.
Nice gesture, but it won't make much of a dent in $8.1 trillion, an incomprehensible sum that grows by more than $2 billion a day because the federal government routinely borrows money to live beyond its means. U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow has already informed Congress that the country will be unable to pay its bills by mid-February unless the debt limit, now actually $8.18 trillion, is raised again. In November 2004, it was increased from $7.38 trillion.
Taxpayers ought to realize every tax dollar the government spends for interest on borrowed money is a dollar that is not going into government services, not going to the troops in Iraq and not going to the Gulf Coast rebuild. About a quarter of the borrowed money comes from foreign banks and governments.
In a letter to Snow, U.S. Reps. Charles Rangel of New York and John Spratt of South Carolina, ranking Democrats on key House fiscal committees, reminded him that just a few years ago, the yearly federal budget was actually generating a surplus and the national debt was shrinking.
"We are prepared to support a short-term increase in the debt ceiling to avert default," they wrote. "But we believe that it would be irresponsible to support a long-term debt ceiling increase without a long-term plan to put the budget back on track." The lawmakers said that plan should include restoring a pay-as-you go approach to new federal initiatives -- the same basis on which a lot of American families operate.
Now, if every man, woman and child in the country chipped in about $28,000, we could wipe out the national debt. But if every man, woman and child in the country had $28,000, would they want to send it to Washington?
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Originally Posted by beltman713
