Are you interested in a plan to stop the growth of the Federal Debt? If so please review the 10 point TenOC plan below. If you like it (or even if you do not like it) forward it with your comments to your email buddies, facebook friends, your talk show host, your congressman, tweet about it, bog about it, post it on your websites, and you are free to send or copy it to anyone else you can think of. We need to start an ACTIVE conversation about this (or some other) plan to reduce the federal debt.…
The total unfunded promises and liabilities of the United States is over 62 trillion dollars. In order to pay for our major liabilities and promises, the United States needs that money invested today but of all that money they have zero of it. The federal debt includes money that the government owes to social security, Medicare, and debt owed to the public. By the end of 2010, the federal government will owe almost 9 trillion dollars to the public. Also, our gross domestic product is expected to reach 14.6 trillion dollars by the end of 2010. The public debt to gross domestic product ratio is used to determine how much we borrowed relative to our national income. By the end of 2010, our public debt to gross domestic product will be around 62 percent.…
$19.3 trillion dollars. That’s the national debt. And before I even say this number out loud it will probably have risen hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe even millions. The U.S has about $66 trillion dollars in overall debt and even for the most powerful country that’s got to knock you down a notch. Indeed the next President has an abundance of problems to solve, but to even think about solving them he has to find money, which with -$66 trillion dollars on his belt is about as easy a trying to escape a house of mirrors. At some point people have to start wondering “ How did we get here?”.…
Secondly, another way to reduce debt is to completely cut out all the useless spending. In a year, the government spends $2.6 million dollars to help “Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job.” (reference) Why waste money on prostitutes? Why does the American government care enough to help them? We could be putting that $2.6 million towards out national debt. It’s not much but anything and everything will help. The…
How high? The national debt is currently at $19 trillion and expanding daily. During Barack Obama’s inauguration day, the national debt exceeded $10 trillion. Obama inherited a broken economy with a frozen financial system, unemployment hitting double digits, a $455 billion deficit, a banking crisis, and massive layoffs. Simply put, there were not enough taxes to make up the federal government’s extravagant spending. Eight years earlier, Former President George W. Bush inherited a surplus and envisioned tax cuts for his presidency. These cuts exceeded $1 trillion over 10 years and were, mostly, to the wealthy. Since former President Ronald Reagan, Republicans institute a tax-cut approach to the economy. However, in the 1990s, Republican George…
Outrageous amounts of money are spent on healthcare reform. In the next ten years, Obamacare, a program that provides healthcare for all, is set to spend over $1.2 trillion (Federal Spending 1). This is more than double what is needed. Half of this should be cut and be used to start paying off the national debt. If this is done in one short term payment, the interest on the debt will shrink, saving a great deal of money every year. Similarly, Obamacare was a failure, less than half of expected users enrolled in the program. As a result, the program is ineffective and should lose funding. Political scientist George Will postulates that “...entitlements are the fastest growing personal income” (1). This proves that these programs should be cut. Many argue that this program is too beneficial to lose funding. This has been proven completely false as Obamacare initially had too few people sign up for the program to be effective (Will 1). In conclusion, healthcare programs should drastically lose funding. They are a major factor that leads to the growth of the national debt. If this program is cut, it will begin a period of economic success in the United…
As we discussed and read about this week in our class, the topic of the US Budget and how, why and what should we do about it has become a topic with many views and opinions. The United States of America currently holds over 16 Trillion dollars in debt based on our governments spending practices for the last ten years. Two wars, numerous fiscal collapses and cliffs, a bubble popped housing market, looming medical care costs from a socialized healthcare law and a recession have caused the government to acquire enormous amounts of debt. This debt with caused by what seems to be from irresponsible spending on both the Legislative and the Executive Branches have done nothing to lessen this deficit. One idea that has been discussed not only in Congress, but on prime time news networks is the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment. A Balance Budget Amendment (as recently seen in House Bill HJR2, 28 NOV 2011) would require that Congress balance its budget every fiscal year unless a three-fifths majority of both houses approved of maintaining a deficit[1]. In a CNN Poll, conducted by ORC International, 74% of Americans surveyed would be in favor of a constitutional amendment to require a Balanced federal budget. So, why did it miss passing by the House of Representatives 23 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed? In the graph we see that federal debt will remain above 73 percent of GDP, far higher than the the 39 percent seen over the last four decades as stated by the Congressional Budget Office. This level is of debt is unsustainable to the our economy and a Balanced Budget Amendment may be the answer to get wasteful spending under control and reduce out national debt.…
The short summarized version of the filmy I.O.U.S.A. clarified some information that I had learned about in my AP Government class such as the deficit and how we got in such a big hole. History does repeat itself and this clips goes on to show how the US have been in debt since independence. This is surprising to me because the US has been considered the richest country for so long but we have always suffered somewhat of a deficit or debt. The video shows that we have had a trade surplus for only four years and the rest has been trade deficits meaning more import than exports. This really shocks me and really lets the people know that in the past decade there has not been significant progress in my point of view. Although it does take time to dig out of a deficit, our country does not show too many signs of positivity at the moment. The federal debt says its is 8.7 trillion but now it is a little less than double around 15 trillion dollar which is a huge deficit. We are also in debt to other countries, which did not surprise me because at the same time we lend money. I do not think that the US is not in the position to be lending money out to other countries. What they should be doing is focusing on the stimulation of our economy through steady tax raises, job opportunities, and a balanced. It is a shock to hear that we have not had a balanced budget since before former President Bill Clinton. I believe having a balanced budget is the first step to a good fiscal year and a good way to recover from a recession that we are still feeling the after burn of. Now I also am more informed about the Social Security situation. We will continue to pay for Social Security only to pay for the “baby boomers” because of our debt, which I knew but did not fully understand. The fact that a majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck just goes to show how Americans are behaving just like their country. That is no way to live because a hard worker…
For the first time in seventeen years the Republicans in Congress chose to shut down the federal government all because they didn’t like one law. One faction of one party in one house of congress in one branch of government shut down major branches of the government. The House and Senate could not agree on the Obamacare bill by September 30, 2013; thus resulting in the federal government shutdown. The shutdown “didn’t have to happen”, Obama proclaims as he addresses the issue of the economy also being affected as it was in the last shutdown, but this time they are still in the process of economical recovery. This does not mean that everybody who works for the federal government, but paychecks would be delayed, vital services that seniors and veterans, women and children, business and our economy will all be “hamstrung”. The President warns the public and Republicans of the real-life economic impacts of the shutdown, cautioning that specific office buildings would close and workers and their families would all be hurt greatly. House Republicans continue to insist they will not agree to a budget bill to keep the government operating without measures to delay or defund the president's signature health care legislation, something the Senate has repeatedly rejected. They refuse to fund the government unless they defund the affordable care act. They have demanded, “ransom just for doing their job” over an ideological crusade to deny health insurance to millions of Americans. The shutdown will without a doubt hurt the economy and services and benefits that Americans depend on must be put on hold and closed. Hundreds and thousands of civilian workers still on the job or staying at home aren’t being paid, even those with families to support; more families will be hurt and more businesses will be harmed. The longer the national shutdown continues, the worst the effects will be. Obama urges house republicans to reopen the government restart the services Americans depend on…
Hanson’s piece takes a very extreme stance of looming disaster and society collapse for America as he writes using a negative thinking trap, appealing to fear. 3 The article capitalizes on America’s fear of unfunded…
The U.S. national debt is currently $18 trillion dollars and it is rising fast. The national debt today is the highest compared to the past U.S. national debt. In George Washington’s Farewell Address, it declared to avoid going into debt and if the nation end up in a debt that it should pay off the debt so it doesn’t burden the future generation. Like all the other things in his Farewell Address, the nation didn’t listen to him. The ideal goal right now is to stop the debt from increasing anymore because it is impossible to stop the debt from increasing and paying off all the debt in this generation.…
It took a while for the administration of Obama to initialize action about America’s enormously increasing debt. Given that the country has mounting debts, it would be difficult shrink it down.…
Many fear that a looming economic disaster will affect the health care system for the long term. Reed Abelson argues that the problem of unpaid medical bills is worsening the financial crisis: “Even as Washington and Wall Street debate the best way to avert an economic disaster, increasing numbers of Americans are struggling with another financial crisis: the growing burden of unpaid medical bills” (Abelson, 2008, 1). More employees are paying out of pocket fees for their medical…
American people look at their insurance bills, co-pays and drug costs, and can't understand why they continue to increase. The insured should consider all of these reasons before getting upset. In 2004, employee health care premiums increased over 11 percent, four times more than the rate of inflation. In 2003, premiums rose 10.1 percent and in 2002 they rose 15 percent. Employee spending for coverage increased 126 percent between 2000 and 2004. Those increases were lower than expected. (National Coalition on Health Care, 2005, Facts on health care costs). Premiums have risen five times faster than workers wages, on average. If medical spending continues to rise by just two percent more than personal income, by 2040 Medicare and Medicaid would hit 18.5 percent of the gross domestic product, leading the federal deficit to be 20.7 of the gross domestic product. (Melcer, R., 2004, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Rising Costs of healthcare pose huge challenges).…
The argument’s main idea is that the U.S. debt is continuing to increase, and the government needs to halt this growth. The author, Kimberly Amadeo, begins her argument by explaining that the U.S. debt is held by the American public and the governments of other countries. Our debt is the largest in the world, and is continuing to increase. The article also explains how the debt became so massive. Amadeo states that the debt is caused by an accumulation of Federal budget deficits and presidents borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund. Also, other countries keep lending money to the U.S. and set low interest rates, which benefits the Federal government. Finally, Congress keeps increasing the limit on the debt, thus allowing it to continue to grow. The author supports these reasons by using facts and statistics. The article is wrapped up by explaining that the economy may be thriving now, but soon the growing debt will cause a major crash.…