Our National Debt right now (as of Feb 16, 2007 at 4:37a.m.) is $8,725,892,161,234.89!* 8.7 trillion dollars, is equal to roughly 29,000 dollars per American.* That debt is invariably on the rise, on average it goes up 1.57 billion dollars* a day! Almost a year ago (approximately 11 months) congress raised the federal debt limit to 9 trillion dollars. Now if my math is correct and the 1.57 billion dollars a day rise is a constant, we will hit that debt limit in roughly 191 days.
But it's not just the federal government having problems, it's your parents, grandparents, neighbors, aunts, uncles, you get the picture. The average American household (with at least one credit card) is in debt (to credit card companies) $9,200.** Look around your neighborhood. How many houses do you see? In my sect of the neighborhood there are about 20 + homes. That’s a minimum of 184,000, multiply that buy the number of divisions in the entire neighborhood that number more than octuples bring it to around 1.5 million dollars! That’s just one neighborhood, in one town! Now think about all the people in apartment complexes and condos. There are sometimes 20 + households living in one building! Debt is surrounding us as a nation and as people.
We, as a nation and as individuals, need to take a look at our spending habits. Can things be cut out? Do we really need to charge this, or can we pay cash? The problem with today's society is that we are spending more than we bring in. While a couple hundred dollars here or there may not seem like much it adds up rather quickly. Undoubtedly we are in a war which causes more spending than usual, but it’s getting to be ridiculous. I have a cousin Afghanistan right now and have another that has the possibility of being shipped out to Iraq, so I understand the necessity of armor and things of that nature, but what I don't understand is the need to surge more troops into
Iraq to be able to get out of there faster.
Surging more troops in will make it seem like we are trying to take over, which may in fact raise the civil violence so the people do not feel like they are being over taken by a regime and more fighting? That’s the exact opposite of what we are trying to accomplish. Here in America we don’t live with foreign occupation but in
Iraq they do. These people have lived in one condition for the majority of their lives; they were taken over by a dictator and his army. How did they accomplish that? By killing their former leader and taking over. What did we do? We killed their former leader and now are pushing more Americans in? President Bush and The United States Congress need too look at these facts, while I understand that they are doing everything in their power to help out the Iraqi people they may be over looking the facts at home, where spending on the federal, state, local, and public levels is out of control.
We as Americans need to step up and speak out against all this governmental spending; it’s getting to be out of control. As the future generation we have more problems facing us than the current generation does. We will have to deal with the break down of Social Security, the fact that we are going to use up all of the worlds oil supply, the effects of global warming, and much more. We shouldn't have to deal with this enormous debt as well. This government needs to step up and start charging more in taxes. But before you go out and get your torches and pitchforks hear me out.
Our government primarily is focusing on cutting taxes. But what does cutting taxes mean? It means fewer programs and less funding for the programs currently in existence. It means spending more than we take in which means more debt. Candidates for president, congress, state, and local offices use a platform of cutting taxes. Our government is not what is best for the people; it’s about what is best for their wallets. No person is going to vote for a congressman that’s going to raise taxes, and they know this, so they say they'll cut your taxes. But taxes are what this government runs on. People complain about potholes in highways, taxes pay to fix those. People complain about the cost of prescriptions, taxes help lower those prices. Groups complain about our soldiers not having enough armor, taxes pay for that armor. Taxes fund this government, by cutting taxes we are cutting funding to our government, which leads to the overspending, which leads to the debt, which leads to the bills we are going to have to pay at some point in time, at which we will all gripe about the cost, when in reality we will have no one but ourselves to blame.
So we need to think twice about our spending, think twice before we demand our taxes be cut even further, think twice about who we elect to congress, to state and local government positions, and who we elect as president in 2008. Our government is not solely the one to blame right now for the national debt; we are as well for under-funding them. So I say
America, think before you spend, think before you demand, and think before you act.
*This information was provided by http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
**This information was provided by http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson9/
I agree that putting more troops in Iraq does not solve any problems, but economically speaking, we are not spending that much money on Iraq ($25 bil. or so a year) compared to the national deficit (about 500 bil.), which is basically the government's "national debt"...What you later say though, hits the point quite well...Taxes should not be cut. There are many programs that the government NEEDS to spend money on, and needs taxes for. Our deficit arises because these taxes are cut significantly. thus creating a shortage of money to run these programs. To reduce the deficit, many programs are being shut down or reduced (for example, the potential of ending social security). So yes, we do need to think twice before voting to cut taxes, because this will lead to an economic downturn and a cutoff of essential programs that are there to help the American people.