Watching coming attractions in Washington? The next biggie
will be the congressional fight over the national debt.
Since May 17, 2013,
the Daily Treasury Statement of the debt has not moved from
$16,695,396,000.000, which is a mere $25 million below the legal limit,
according to a link on the Drudge Report to CNSNews.
Meanwhile, go to the
Web and look at U.S. Debt Clock.org and the clock is still running. The total as
this is written is $16.8 trillion. Treasury Secretary Lew said on television
recently that the limit had already been passed.
No secret exists
that the national debt represents an amount nearly beyond comprehension by
folks having even a good-sized middle class income of less than $100,000. But
that same Debt Clock, where the numbers grow more with each tick of the clock
and go up and up while watching the computer screen, shows even more.
When last viewed for
this piece, the clock showed that the national debt approaching $17 trillion
amounted to $55,367 for each citizen or $148,025 for each taxpayer. Call up the
site now, and those numbers will have grown.
More disturbing are
figures at the bottom of the Debt Clock computer page.
Total national
assets composed of $8.25 trillion in small business assets, $18 trillion in
corporation assets and $74.3 trillion in household assets add up to $100.6
trillion. Statistically, that’s $318,276 per citizen --- not actually, but a
figure that helps one get a handle on the size of what the country is worth.
But, those total
assets fall short of the federal government’s liabilities: $16.5 trillion for
social security, $21.8 trillion for prescription drugs, and $86.7 trillion that
total $125 trillion. For each taxpayer, the liability amounts to $1,096,398.
So, the government’s
long term liabilities add up to $24.4 trillion more than private assets – the
value of what all businesses and individuals own.
From the above
figures, only a mathematician could estimate how much the average citizen would
have to find to pay his or her share of the long-term debt. But obviously,
since only about half of the population pays federal income taxes, even if
every person within the boundaries of the United States could be taxed, there
just is not enough money to pay for the spending Congress and presidents over
recent years have authorized. Sure, taxes come in shapes other than those on
incomes, but people and business are not worth enough to pay the enormous
amount owed.
One does not have to
be a political junkie to know that whatever our politicians come up with in the
coming months to boost the country’s debt limit they will fail when it comes to
simple arithmetic. The bill or resolution that eventually be signed by the
president will be only stopgap.
U.S. debt is so
tremendous that words can hardly be coined to describe it. Paying it off
becomes even more complex.
Annual budgets need
to pay off the debt gradually. Two
problems: The government has not had a budget for several years; when budgets
or continuing resolutions are passed, they call for deficits.
Deficits increase
the national debt.
Thus, deficits must
be turned into actual surpluses before the debt can begin to be cut.
The odds of our
politically oriented officials solving the country’s financial conundrum are
longer – much longer – than winning Power Ball. But, that lottery is actually
won from time to time.
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