Understanding the Debt Problem - A Brief Summary

America the land of the free in the home of the brave has a huge and growing debt problem which chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen called the greatest threat to our national security here's why in 2012 the federal government spent 3.5 trillion dollars but received only 2.4 trillion dollars in taxes that left an annual deficit of 1.1 trillion dollars that burden along with prior deficits and debt levels have basically been passed on to our children we older folk certainly won't be paying it back even in 2000 when America last had a real budget surplus our public debt carried forward from prior years was three point four trillion dollars at the end of 2012 the public debt had escalated to 11.3 trillion dollars include intragovernmental obligations like money we borrowed from Social Security and Medicare trust funds and add the state local government debt like European countries do and our total government debt was a hundred and thirty-eight percent of the economy or GDP at the end of 2012 that exceeds every country in Europe except Greece and we sure don't want to follow Greece's bad example the government has other explicit liabilities primarily unfunded retirement obligations to our veterans and civilian employees where they present value today of another seven trillion dollars add the federal government's two trillion dollars and other commitments and contingencies and the independent actuaries estimate of the present value of cash flow shortfalls for Social Security Medicare and you break through the top of the chart in total as of September 30 2012 our country was about 70 trillion dollars in the hole that's about 225,000 dollars for every man woman and newborn child in this country this debt and the interest on it is everybody's problem Social Security Medicare Medicaid and interest are expected to exceed all federal revenues after 2030 based on historical levels of Taxation this leave no funds for spending on defense Homeland Security education infrastructure research the poor and it will put increasing pressure on Medicare and Social Security which seniors depend on moreover for the sake of the next generation for us to spend and promised more to ourselves than we are willing to pay for is ethically and morally wrong there are solutions and we can solve this problem however we the people need to demand that our political leaders fix this problem before it's too late you

Channel: KeepingAmericaGreat.org

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Keywords: Debt, Deficits, Economics, Savings, David Walker, Economic Growth (Taxonomy Subject), Government Debt, Economy, United States, Federal Deficit, Government Debt Taxonomy Subject, Debt Crisis, deficit, American

Id: uKwsSGbatKo

Length: 3min 3sec (183 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 16 2013