Skylar Ashley Alexis Wunderlich Political Science 1101-C 26 October 2017 National Debt is a Serious Problem National debt is the total amount of money that the country has borrowed. National deficit is the difference between what the government makes and what it spends. As of October 19, 2017, the national outstanding debt was $20.4 trillion, according to treasurydirect.gov. About $14.8 trillion of our national debt belongs to the public, which is what the government owes individual people, companies, and foreign governments who have bought notes, bonds, and other federal bank securities. The other one third belongs to the government itself. The government owes its own departments, mostly the Social Security office. During the next twenty …show more content…
Emergencies are a great part of our national debt. War is a prime example of an emergency that the government has to pour money into. There is never a moment our government is neutral with all other countries. We must be prepared at anytime to go to war to fight for either our own country, or one of our allies. Taxpayers have to pay a heavy price for the debt the country accumulates during a war. Recently, the national debt has grown faster than our population. As the national debt increases, the U.S. treasury removes the interest on new securities in an effort to attract new investors. This means the government has less tax money to spend on public goods and other governmental services. The tax revenue is now going more towards the interest of our national debt. For us, the people, this causes a slow decrease in our standard of living. As we continue incurring debt many things will begin to happen. Roads will get even worse than they currently are. Schools will begin to see a decline in government financial support. There will also be reductions in emergency personnel and services. Being our largest expenditure, the military will also see cuts soon. With these reductions, there may be many protests against the lack of funding in the interest of the country’s
This deficit has to do with having responsible leader who are willing to increase awareness and make beneficial changes in the nation. In my opinion, the federal debt is a serious threat to the US that must be politically address whenever possible. I believe that the candidates of the 2016 presidential election should make this issue one of the top priorities to discuss and to dictate a considerable amount of work to fix it. That is because the worse the federal debt is, the worse the future would be to the nation. Also, voters must be well educated about this issue in order to shape their decision in voting for the candidate that seems most powerful and confident about this problem. Solving this problem may be difficult and would take time and so much effort. Therefore, the changes and solution must be on both a national and individual levels as
The dollar will be worth less and less if the nation is in high debt. People will also be affected, when you have less money you spend and buy less due to increased prices, which can cause problems in the economy such as a recession or worse a depression. Budget deficit calls for the government to let costs exceed national income and use monetary policy to jump start the economy. The government must be careful when choosing the best way to build the economy. If the policies fail, they can lead the nation into many problems, as stated above.
When you get to the point where debt becomes too much you begin to search for a way out. There are many different options to get rid of their debt; one option is the debt snowball. This debt relief option sounds more unusual than it really is.
In general, an increase in government spending and decrease in the collection of government taxes and other receipts, increases the debt held by the local government. Government taxes and receipts fluctuate annually, and are frequently less than government spending. In the past, the U.S. public debt has increased for the duration of wars and recessions. When the government consumes more than what it accumulates in taxes, there is a budget deficit and the government then borrows from the private sector or from foreign governments to protect their spending. The compilation of historical borrowing is what materializes the government debt.
However the interest we pay on our nation 's debt is very small compared to the overall budget. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities only 7% of the total budget is spent on interest which is relatively low compared to things like social security which took up 24% of the budget in 2014 (Policy Basics). As long as the United States can continue to keep the interest rates low the debt will continue to be a begin threat. If the creditors of the U.S. were to spike their interest rates, America would be in trouble, however America has fairly good credit, and it should remain that way unless there is another scare like the government shutdown in 2011 (Riley). Overall the threat of the nation debt is a very minute problem in the grand scheme of things. According to The Richest, only five nations in the entire world are completely debt free, which is astounding when you consider that there are about 195 countries in the entire world (Mathers; How Many). These figures show how extremely difficult it is for a country to run without having a certain amount of debt, and America having debt should not be a concern. America is not even in the top ten countries whose debt make up the majority of their GDP (Country List). Which means that at the moment American’s should not be overly
As of today America’s national debt is 18 trillion dollars and approximately 5 trillion of that is held by foreign countries including China and Japan. In the last few years we seem to hear more about balancing the country’s budget and politicians raising the debt ceiling so we can pay on this debt. How have we gotten into such an overwhelming and complicated problem with our nation’s money? Ironically the same can be said for our individual household debt as well as making the same mistakes and trying to find creative ways to be accountable to our financial responsibilities. Teaching the basics of personal finance n our schools can culturally change our financial practices, leading to a more financially literate public and a stronger, more stable, America. If the younger generations can become more financially savvy, then there is an opportunity for our nation as a whole to become less dependent on debt to survive.
“The National Debt (sidebar).” Issues and Controversies. Facts on File News Services, 23 Jan. 2009. Web. 25 May 2011. .
The national debt is usually a frightening topic citizens of any country, however, in the United States, twenty trillion dollars of national debt is one of the major fears of the economy. Along with this fear comes every politician claiming to be the person to lower this astronomical debt to ease concerns in the modern American economy. In Hamilton’s Blessing, John Steele Gordon tries to alleviate these concerns by showing a plethora of benefits and good the debt has been able to do throughout the history of the United States. The central premise of the book and the main guideline for John Steele Gordon’s thinking is that the debt was used to save the Union in the 1860’s, the American economy in the 1930’s, and the wellbeing of mankind during
Americans bought bonds to help support the war and in return, would be repaid in full at an agreed-upon interest rate. A government refusing to repay its war debts, including the interest owed to bondholders, would seem untrustworthy to lenders. Citizens would hesitate to invest their savings in U.S. government bonds, or in new businesses, knowing that the government might break its promise to repay or might allow others to do so. In other words, the U.S. government was severely restricted in its capacity to handle debts and expenses. Even if it seemed natural to repay war debts, therefore, Congress in 1781 had no obvious means of raising the revenue that would be needed for repayment....
This summation of the state of Social Security was written more than a twenty years ago. Looking back, it seems as though the Social Security system frequently reaches a state of crisis in which predictions of its end arise. Since it was enacted in 1935, Social Security has been amended often, most recently in 1983, when Congress imposed a tax on the benefits of high-income retirees, raised the retirement age, and revised the tax-rate schedule.
U.S Federal Deficit and Debts:Understanding the history and context. (2011, November 1). Utah Foundation. Retrieved January 25, 2014, from http://www.utahfoundation.org/img/pdfs/rr7
We hear about the debt almost every day: news talks about it, politicians argue about it, even President Obama gives speeches on it. So what is the significance behind it? In this article I am going to explain briefly what the national debt is, how big it is, and what it has to do with us.
The government’s revenue comes from taxes. When the economy is doing well, the money keeps moving within the economy. The more transactions within the economy, the more revenue the government can make. This is the case with sales taxes and other trade and commerce related taxes. The government also takes in much of its revenue from property taxes. If the economy is doing well it is likely that more citizens will own property instead of rent. When the economy is not doing well, the money stops moving and the government may not collect as many taxes.
Since the attacks a number of civil defense programs have been initiated, which leads to more departments asking for an allowance within the national budget. This ultimately is leading to a larger and larger deficit that is quickly encompassing full percentage points of our GDP. There is a debate on how much defense spending is actually needed, because during the Clinton administration there were massive cuts to the defense budget, which lead to critics saying that our military force was in question. These same critics said that without the funds that had been cut-off by Clinton the military would spiral down to not being able to defend the homeland, let alone take on any offensive. The one argument I have is that President Bush was not in office long enough for his increased defense budget to take affect when he overthrew two regimes (Afghanistan & Iraq) with the same military force that was said to be completely ineffective because of lack of funds.
Veldhuis, Neil. “Beyond our means: Government debt tops $1.2-trillion and spending is still rising.” Financial Post. National Post, 16 May 2013. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.