National Debt Policy

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National Debt Policy

The national debt as I write this paper is over 17.4 trillion dollars. This number is increasing minute by minute, and is headed towards financial ruin. The national government needs a mandatory balanced budget. This is an issue in today’s politics that needs to be solved otherwise it is going to have a major negative impact on future generations.
Since President Barack Obama took office in 2008, the federal government debt has nearly doubled. “Recent progress toward reducing the annual budget deficit is welcome, yet federal debt is still project to increase 50 percent over the next decade under existing policies.” (The Heritage Foundation). Debt is not a new problem for America. “As you can see from the graph below (Figure 1), the debts that the American Revolutionary War brought were $75,463,476.52. Over the following years, the debt grew. Under President Andrew Jackson, the debt was shrank to zero, but grew to millions soon after.”(Bureau of Public Debt). He called the debt a “national curse.” World War II also brought debt, and it briefly shrank after the end of the Cold War. “In the 1970’s, the national debt more than doubled from $366 billion to $829 billion. In the 1980’s, it more than tripled from $829 billion to $2.9 trillion. And in the 1990’s, the debt almost doubled again from $2.9 trillion to $5.6 trillion.”(History of the National Debt). By 2009, the national debt was 10.3 trillion dollars. Society has become immune to what 1 trillion dollars is. To put this in perspective, Christ was born over 2,000 years ago. If an individual were to spend 1 million dollars a day since the birth of Christ, that spending spree still would not account for 1 trillion dollars. Our debt accounts to 17 trillion....

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Works Cited

"Borrowing and the Federal Debt." National Priorities Project. N.p., 2014. Web. 27 Apr.
2014.

"Bureau of the Public Debt: Our History." Bureau of the Public Debt: Our History. United
States Department of Treasury, 13 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.

Dubay, Curtis. "Tax Reform Is about Economic Growth." The Heritage Foundation. N.p.,
2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.

Halterman, Kevin. Personal interview. 27 April. 2014.

"History of the National Debt." The National Debt Crisis RSS. N.p., 2012. Web. 27 Apr.
2014.

Pomerleau, Kyle. "The High Burden of State and Federal Capital Gains Tax Rates." Tax
Foundation. N.p., 11 Feb. 2014. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.

Richards, Kitty, and John Craig. "Offshore Corporate Profits: The Only Thing 'Trapped' Is
Tax Revenue." Center for American Progress. N.p., 9 Jan. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2014.

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