Just how big is the debt?

[Powerboss]

I'm pretty sure conservatives (not Republicans) are right about this and always have been. The nation's debt will soon reach the point where it is not managable. Any idea how much of the federal budget is spent on paying just the interest on the debt? Over $430B every year...and increasing. Soon, the interest alone will eclipse what we spend on our national defense!!

We can not continue like this. We are going to end up like Greece...but there's no one big enough to bail us out. This is extremely serious and no one but Paul Ryan is addressing it with anything but platitudes. I don't agree with everything in Ryan's plan...but one thing is certain...very serious and drastic cuts will need to be made very soon if we want to keep our country from imploding financially.

Our debt is now 100% of GDP...and increasing. There is no plan whatsoever to decrease it. One of every three dollars the federal government spends is borrowed. This is unsustainable.

Bush added $5T in eight years. Obama added another $5T in four years. When will this insanity end? Instead, we're spending a lot of time talking about shit like gay marriage. We are so fucked it isn't even funny.

Even though you've been a dick towards me at times you're 100% correct. The other thing is that the longer we wait to do anything, the more painful it's going to be.

It's clear that the Democrats are not the least bit serious about addressing it. The only one who has made the slightest effort is Conrad, because he's retiring, and Reid won't even let them vote on it.
Whether the Republicans are serious is also in question but at least they have put forth plans and passed them out of the house only to have Reid not let the Senate vote on it.

[Archaix]

WEIMAR REPUBLIC AND ZIMBABWE.

You're classing Zimbabwe as a 'modern country'? In neither case did hyperinflation occur because the governments wanted to peg their currency to the paper it was printed on. Weimar Germany was forced into that position when the French occupied the Ruhr factories and devastated the economy, and so didn't have anything to back up the mark; Zimbabwe grew into that position through pointless and racist land reform, tribal clashes, international sanctions and chronic industrial/agricultural malaise. What's your suggestion -put them on the gold standard? Please.

WHEN THERE IS NO CONTROL OVER THE PRINTING PRESS, THE VALUE OF THE PAPER CURRENCY IS LOST AND BECOMES ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS.

So you're admitting now that it has value if it isn't over-printed?

I CANT HELP IT IF YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND BASIC MONEY PRINCIPLES. THE MORE OF SOMETHING IN EXISTENCE, THE LESS VALUABLE IT BECOMES.

[Desert Fox]

I'm pretty sure conservatives (not Republicans) are right about this and always have been. The nation's debt will soon reach the point where it is not managable. Any idea how much of the federal budget is spent on paying just the interest on the debt? Over $430B every year...and increasing. Soon, the interest alone will eclipse what we spend on our national defense!!

We can not continue like this. We are going to end up like Greece...but there's no one big enough to bail us out. This is extremely serious and no one but Paul Ryan is addressing it with anything but platitudes. I don't agree with everything in Ryan's plan...but one thing is certain...very serious and drastic cuts will need to be made very soon if we want to keep our country from imploding financially.

Our debt is now 100% of GDP...and increasing. There is no plan whatsoever to decrease it. One of every three dollars the federal government spends is borrowed. This is unsustainable.

Bush added $5T in eight years. Obama added another $5T in four years. When will this insanity end? Instead, we're spending a lot of time talking about shit like gay marriage. We are so fucked it isn't even funny.

What is the defense budget? Close to $700 billion including the budget cuts. The cost of Obamacare? $48 billion. Why? Conservatives and conservative decisions.

[hadit]

Even though you've been a dick towards me at times you're 100% correct. The other thing is that the longer we wait to do anything, the more painful it's going to be.

It's clear that the Democrats are not the least bit serious about addressing it. The only one who has made the slightest effort is Conrad, because he's retiring, and Reid won't even let them vote on it.
Whether the Republicans are serious is also in question but at least they have put forth plans and passed them out of the house only to have Reid not let the Senate vote on it.

And therein lies the problem. For years, any time someone wanted to actually fix the problem, we got a bunch of whining that we're pushing grandma off the cliff, forcing seniors to eat dog food and pushing kids into the streets. We can't even summon the willpower to stop subsidizing blatantly political organizations like Public Broadcasting or artists. Yes, we will look like Greece. Like a bunch of spoiled, whiny kids rioting because there is no more free lunch. Those who were careful and took care of their own situations will be demonized and attacked as being selfish, and whatever they have will be up for grabs to whomever promises the voters he will take it. "Fair share" will be prominently featured.

[hadit]

What is the defense budget? Close to $700 billion including the budget cuts. The cost of Obamacare? $48 billion. Why? Conservatives and conservative decisions.

$48 Billion? You're smoking something, and it smells like White House Weed. And if you're going to pretend its cost this year is somehow representative, don't even try.

[food4thought]

The following commentary, though not specific has a general sense of optimism - recovering we are, albeit slowly, which was expected. Things are not as bad as some would have you believe.:

"On the Sunday, April 22 edition of FAREED ZAKARIA GPS , Fareed Zakaria reflected upon the effects of austerity budgets upon economic growth for Europe's economies. He also compares the economic projections for several of Europe's economies with those for the United States. The text for this commentary is below – a link to the transcript for the full program follows:

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, “FAREED ZAKARIA GPS”: ...first, here's my take. A new poll in the United States shows that Americans are still deeply frustrated at the slow pace of the economic recovery. That's understandable. Unemployment stays stubbornly high. But I was just in Europe, and they think America is booming.

Consider this: the U.S. economy is on track to grow between 2 and 3 percent this year. In Europe, by contrast, half the eurozone economies are going to actually shrink this year and not one major European country will grow over 1 percent.

Last Thursday, Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and former French Finance Minister of France, said there were "dark clouds" hanging over the global recovery and that the eurozone was at the "epicenter of potential risk." Borrowing costs for countries like Spain, Italy and Greece are rising again.

What is going on? Didn't it look like the Europeans had managed to avert a crisis only a few weeks ago? Yes it did. Mario Draghi, Europe's new Central banker, had adopted a version of Ben Bernanke's policies and injected money into the European financial system and economy. But his efforts are now being undercut by the German Bundesbank, which reflects Germany's obsession about inflation even at the cost of growth.

The larger failure, shared across Europe, has been too much austerity. Consider that data we started with. The U.S. economy, which received monetary and fiscal stimulus, will grow at well over 2 percent this year.

European economies that have followed the path of cutting spending and raising taxes to reduce deficits are finding themselves in a downward spiral: cutting spending means laying off people, which means less demand for goods and services, which means the economy shrinks, which, ironically, means lower tax revenues and thus larger budget deficits.

Take a look at Britain. Britain has followed a brave austerity plan, cutting government spending across the board and raising taxes. The result, British growth has stalled. The economy will grow barely 0.8 percent this year. And while its budget deficit was predicted to be under $13 billion in February, it was in fact $24 billion for that month alone.

After its austerity program, Spain has hit 20 percent unemployment, 50 percent youth unemployment, and now has a much larger budget deficit than projected. Europe needs structural reforms that will cut spending over the long term – by raising retirement ages and cutting benefits. But it also needs pro-growth reforms that open up its labor market.

And, most importantly, for now, it needs to stop imposing austerity in a depressed economy and learn from something from the example across the Atlantic. Two or 2.5 percent growth might not look so great in America, but it a lot better than negative 0.3 percent, which is the current estimate for the eurozone's economic growth."

[Archaix]

Take a look at Britain. Britain has followed a brave austerity plan, cutting government spending across the board and raising taxes. The result, British growth has stalled. The economy will grow barely 0.8 percent this year. And while its budget deficit was predicted to be under $13 billion in February, it was in fact $24 billion for that month alone.

Actually, it's worse than that: new data released by the ONS shows our economy suffered a recession before Christmas -the second since 2008. Austerity doesn't work.

[9ball8]

You and your non-profit nonsense. This isn't about a libertarian model, this is about the federal government living within the confines of the constitution. Government has been illegally running your non-profit model for 70 years and not only does it cost more every year, it's full of fraud, has no chance of ever ending poverty and liberals foolishly want more of it.
...If you really want to improve peoples lives, radically reform education into something that's practical and job focused. It's not as sexy as handing out checks, but it has the advantage of being trillions per year cheaper, far more sustainable and it doesn't require interference from the federal government. ....

Name one private non-profit that ran deficits for most of it's 70 years, or didn't use benchmarks for every expenditure during that period. Here's why lawmakers haven't proposed a business plan: because it subjects their pet projects to cuts if they fail to meet objectives. "War on poverty" reduces poverty by 5, but not 10% as promised within X number of years? Automatic funding cut of 50%. Defense funding overruns by 10%? Cut it's funding by 10%. Want to increase funding? Get the bugs out and meet your objectives. The "emergency" argument has been used to shut down these ideas, although most bad budgeting has occured in non-emergency situations. How convenient.
Your idea for education seems almost like an admission for its' inclusion in the general welfare. But not quite. The best single source for standardized education requirements is the federal gov't.; local & state can enhance, but not fall below minimal requirements. I like your idea for reform, maybe along the lines of Germany's bi-directional education starting at middle school. Some kids just want to learn how to gain a career at a trade or technical position, and don't need to know much about world history. But de-funding liberal arts would assume we know the future value of any particular type of knowledge. Sorry, but it's true: philosophy was behind the advance in computers (Logic -a requirement for computer programming). One might argue that if there is absolutely no return to the general welfare -no requirement for a university degree and no enhancement for an employee's resume, then it drops off the public rolls. But if you look at the requirement & options for getting a business degree -a no nonsense, basic foundation for most leaders of our economy- then you are stuck with most all the liberal arts, anyway.

[food4thought]

Ya mean, like, not go deeply into debt? Aside from the basic sense of running a gov't. along the lines of a non-profit that will not bankrupt itself, we can beat your debating point with that simple answer. I thought you were for a smaller gov't.? Let's see if I guess what you mean by smaller gov't.
-It doesn't spend money on improving the lot of US citizens. "General Welfare" doesn't include citizens.
-Since Citizens aren't included in general welfare, all programs designed to improve opportunities for people to succeed, are invalid.
-Since anyone who can't afford education, health care, shelter and food won't be helped by the gov't., those people must depend on charities if they cannot help themselves.
-If charities can't or won't help these people, they will go under. If the population of folks going under is large enough, it will hold back the nation, since no country will prosper if too many are uneducated, undernourished, sick, or living outside basic shelter.

You, and other libertarians, have as yet to provide examples of countries that succeed today, by using the above model. All you can point to are countries that were open range to a population that was naturally educated for farming/ranching, countries that were not yet exploited for other natural resources like metals and energy. -In other words, your model is based on countries that no longer exist.

Oh yeah. That makes a lot more sense than running gov't programs based on a non-profit business plan (sarcasm). I believe what really bothers you about the non-profit program/audit of gov't programs is this:
-They would succeed, wildly better than they do now. Socialism would become entrenched. Conservatives would have to actually think to come up with a response to that success, rather than point to the sloppy mess that we see in many gov't. programs now.

You're exactly right about needing to help those who are truly in need of it, because it's the right thing to do, and for the good of all.

Another Zakaria commentary, made after he came to Romney's defense for his "poor" comment being taken out of context, clearly backs up what you're saying:



"Remember Mitt Romney's infamous "poor" comment? If not, here it is again:

"I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich; they're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95% of Americans who right now are struggling."

Well, it got me thinking: Romney was actually being honest about Americans in general. We don't - none of us - spend much time thinking about the very poor.

But we should, because we have a real problem in this area, an economic, political and moral problem.

By Romney's calculations, if 95% of Americans fall in the middle class, then there must be less than 5% of Americans who qualify as poor.

Well, no.

The number from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the association of the world's developed economies, is actually 17.3%.

And how do we compare with other rich countries?

We rank 31st of the 34 countries that make up the OECD in terms of the percentage of our population that qualifies as poor. Of the 34 member states, only Mexico, Chile and Israel are worse off than we are. The UK (at 11%), Germany (8.9%) and France (7.2%) are all much lower. The OECD average is 11%.

In case you're wondering how the OECD defines poverty, it calculates the number as the percentage of people who earn less than half of the country's median wage. It's an easy way to compare data across countries.

In the video above, look at the chart that shows the percentage of children in poverty. At 20.6%, we again come off far worse than other rich countries.

Japan, Australia, the UK, Germany and France all have much better numbers.

Romney spoke about how he would fix the safety net for poor people "if it needs repair.”

Let me suggest one place to fix things: end child poverty.

Whatever the causes of poverty, when children grow up in desperate circumstances - circumstances that they had no role in creating - studies show that they will be more likely to drop out of high school, be unemployed, use drugs, have children out of wedlock and get ill.

In other words, they will be unproductive members of society and cost taxpayers huge amounts of money over the course of their lives.

We know that we have an education problem with the poor. Seventy-seven percent of our kids who entered high school graduated. Compare that with other rich countries: 90% in Switzerland, 91% in the UK, 93% in Finland and 97% in Germany. Studies show that dropouts are twice as likely to slip into poverty than high school graduates.

Children in extreme poverty do badly even when they are smart. A recent U.S. study tracked a group of eighth-graders in 1988. It found that students who did very well on a standardized test but were poor were less likely to get through college than their peers who tested poorly but were well-off.

Look at health care. A key indicator of the level of health in a country is its infant mortality rate; that's when a child dies within the first year of life. Let's compare again. We're at about six deaths for every 1,000 live births.

Again, the UK, Australia, Germany, France and Japan all fare much better. Japan's rate is less than half ours. This is simply because many mothers don't have access to prenatal care. Malnutrition and poor childhood health care set in motion a lifetime of poor health - and huge costs to the system.

On indicator after indicator, the U.S. compares badly with other rich nations on not only how impoverished it is but on the facilities and opportunities it is giving the poor. That's why social mobility has stalled in America. Compared with other rich countries, poor Americans are more likely to stay poor. More than 40% of American men whose fathers had earnings in the bottom fifth end up in the same bracket. Britain, Denmark, Finland and Norway all perform much better.

The sad part is, these statistics are reversible. Compare child poverty rates in America and the UK. You'll see that the UK's rates were halved within a decade from the mid-1990s. The U.S. has actually risen since then.

There's no secret sauce. Tony Blair's Labour government simply made reducing child poverty a priority through various programs.

So, Romney: Yes, the media took your comments out of context. But you do need to be concerned about the very poor. We all do."

[food4thought]

Below are some reader's comments in response to the above commentary, which show how the popular negative generalizations/stereotypes of people on "welfare" begin to replace fact and skew the public's perception of the reality of the poverty problem:

"Romney was right in what he said. There is a safety net. Its called 'welfare'". Posted by Lou - February 12, 2012 at 1:12 pm

"Welfare in the US does not exist as it did after 1995. That year, welfare was abolished and TANF (Temporary Aid for Needy Families) was implemented. It is not welfare and requires folks to get a job and get off after a very short period of time. ..." Posted by Josie - February 12, 2012 at 1:49 pm

"Lou – The safety net is an old car. Many familiess are living in cars now. And many school systems are sending school buses to homeless shelters to pickup kids. ..." Posted by Cindy - February 12, 2012 at 1:48 pm

"Yes, "Lou" - welfare. I'd love to cash in on that dream... the $153 a month that provides per person in a poor household here in Michigan (on average) is a great deal! Especially because I can get it for a whopping 48 months. Damn, I know I could be comfortable on that! … At the end of my four years, if I didn't spend a dime, I'd have a whole $7,400... minus bank fees... over four years....What is wrong with you." Posted by Roger - February 13, 2012 at 1:18 pm


And, when the "fair share" argument is countered w/ "life isn't fair", the very rich need to remember this when, because they have "more", they're expected to "give" more. Life isn't fair, is it?!

[9ball8]

I've always liked Zakaria's shows and analysis. Even though I don't agree with all of it, he does his homework, asks tough questions and takes challenges from others as an opportunity for further study. A refreshing change from sound bites and demogogues populating the political/economic shows on too many channels.

[Cd.]

It doesn't matter to a leftist as long as the money is being doled out and they get to spend it.

Interesting. Under Bill Clinton there was a balanced budget and then your hero Dubya came along, gave tax breaks to billionairs and fought two unnecessary wars and put it on a credit card. Where were these GOPigs back then?

[hadit]

Interesting. Under Bill Clinton there was a balanced budget and then your hero Dubya came along, gave tax breaks to billionairs and fought two unnecessary wars and put it on a credit card. Where were these GOPigs back then?

So you want to fight a 12 year old battle instead of trying to fix the situation today? That explains a lot, especially when you have to pretend Bush wasn't criticized for overspending. Of course, criticizing Bush for overspending while ignoring Obama's is like complaining that you stepped in dog poop while a circus elephant is crapping in your lap.

[Chachma v'Oz]

No matter how much Bush and his Republican Guard spent running us into the ditch, it costs a lot more to dig us out. There's no way around that.

Please suffer your shame it silence. It's grown wearisome and old.

[hadit]

No matter how much Bush and his Republican Guard spent running us into the ditch, it costs a lot more to dig us out. There's no way around that.

Please suffer your shame it silence. It's grown wearisome and old.

IOW, the spending is awesome, wonderful, and necessary, and will immediately cease to be the instant Romney is elected this fall.

As I've noted multiple times, if the overspending was REALLY just about getting us out of the Obama Recession, we would see budgets going back down as the economy improves. We're not.

[Chachma v'Oz]

It's certainly necessary, and unfortunate that it is, but that's what we get for tolerating the electoral college system despite its almost fatal flaws. The voters knew better, and system failed them.

At least the Europeans are showing us now, at their expense, that this is the worst possible time for austerity measures. There's no reason for us to make that same mistake after already knowing that it's a bad idea and then seeing it in action.

[Chachma v'Oz]

As I've noted multiple times, if the overspending was REALLY just about getting us out of the Obama Recession, we would see budgets going back down as the economy improves. We're not.

Investment requires initial outlay. You can't reap benefits before sowing the seeds, and they don't come free. Nothing of value does.

Think long term.

[hadit]

Investment requires initial outlay. You can't reap benefits before sowing the seeds, and they don't come free. Nothing of value does.

Think long term.

That's my point. There is NO long term picture that shows spending coming back down after getting us out of the Obama Doldrums. If you have one, please post it, because I haven't seen any. All I've seen are never ending budget bloat.

[Chachma v'Oz]

The day we decide to stop long-term investing in America is the day the Republicans win.

[hadit]

It's certainly necessary, and unfortunate that it is, but that's what we get for tolerating the electoral college system despite its almost fatal flaws. The voters knew better, and system failed them.

At least the Europeans are showing us now, at their expense, that this is the worst possible time for austerity measures. There's no reason for us to make that same mistake after already knowing that it's a bad idea and then seeing it in action.

Let's think long term on this. Austerity measures cause pain in the short term, but what about long term? After the pain comes renewed growth because you don't have massive debts hanging over your head that must be paid back. Increasing spending may soften a downturn in the short term, but again, what about the long term? After the downturn, you have the economy back, but now you're sucking life out of it trying to service the massive new debt you've just accumulated. IOW, taking on debt to ride out a recession can work IF YOU DON'T ALREADY HAVE MASSIVE DEBT TO START WITH. We do, and will end up taking hundreds of billions out of the economy every year just to service the interest alone. Since no government has the political will to avoid kicking the economic can down the road, austerity measures are an admission that there are no more life lines, no more free lunches, and it's take some pain now or face total collapse shortly.