Iriemon

Total US Government debt now stands at $7.93 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. The debt has increased by $553 billion so far this fiscal year ending 9/30/05. About $2.3 trillion has been borrowed since 2000, a 40% increase in the total debt. Approximately $750 billion of that amount is money that is supposed to be building up in our SS trust fund, but has been stolen by the politicians to fund their deficits instead.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm

We are funding our tax cuts, our benefits, and our wars by borrowing massive amounts of money (roughly 25% of what we spend) each year from the next generations -- our children and grandchildren. On top of this massive and growing burden, they have to deal with boomers' retirement and health care costs, and whatever else the world throws at them.

We are failing our children, our grandchildren, and ourselves.

Why is this happening?

According to a recent Associated Press/Ipsos poll:

Only 35% would be willing cut government spending to balance the budget.

Only 18% would be willing to raise taxes to balance the budget.

Only 1% would be willing to raise taxes and cut spending.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky...s/12491038.htm

Shame on us. And shame on the leaders of our government, who tell us noble sounding things like "This country has many challenges. We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations" -- while pandering to our greed and doing just that.

We truly are the pass the buck generation.

128shot

Welcome to war.

the next president better have a plan to fix this..

MrFungus420

It's very short-sighted to blame this on the war.

This is an ongoing problem with the government. Our government has become a bloated money-wasting thing.

The further the government has gotten away from the limits imposed by the Constitution, the worse the probelm gets.

The government spends far too much money on things that it has no right being a part of. Read the Constitution. It specifically says what the federal government's powers and responsibilities are. If it isn't deliniated in the Constitution, the federal government has no right being involved in it.

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Iriemon

The Iraq war has been far longer and costlier than the Admin represented to us would be the case, but in total, the war in Iraq has cost approximatley $250B, which represents just a small portion of the $2.3 trillion borrowed over the last 4 years.

zero18

Exactly. Personally, though, I think the root of the problem is the Federal Reserve. It has allowed government to grow exponentially and led to our huge debt.

zero18

It was recently calculated that the war may cost over 1.3 trillion dollars in 5 years. http://www.warprofiteers.com/article.php?id=12573

Iriemon

The federal reserve (Fed) has nothing to do with the debt or government growth. The Fed has one function: it controls the amount of money available in the system. The Fed does not control taxing or spending or how big government is. Congress and the president do that.

The root problem is that Congress and the President spend more than they take in through tax revenue.

Arch Enemy

Who the hell did we borrow all this money from? I could have sworn most, if not all, rich countries were indebt with us.

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zero18

I highly suggest reading this speech by congressman Ron Paul (one of the few respectable Republican congressmen).

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/co.../cr091002b.htm

And here's a quote from Woodrow Wilson's memoirs referring to the Federal Reserve: I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. -Woodrow Wilson

Iriemon

From Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._National_Debt

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The Bureau of the Public Debt divides the national debt into two main categories: debt held by the public, and intragovernmental holdings. Intragovernmental debt includes money for government trust funds, such as pension plans and the debt for social security which is about $1.7 trillion as of May 2005. Overall, intragovernmental holdings account for over $3.1 trillion of the total debt at this time.

The remaining $4.6 trillion or so has been purchased by the public, including foreign entities. This largely comes from the issuance of Treasury securities. Nearly half ($2.2 trillion) is composed of Treasury notes (aka T-notes), while T-bills and T-bonds (savings bonds) cover most of the remaining public portion of the debt. Bonds sold for infrastructure projects are also part of the national debt.

It is common for individual Americans and businesses to buy bonds and other securities, though much of the debt is now held overseas. At the end of 2004, foreign holdings of Treasury debt were $1,886 billion, which was 44 percent of the total debt held by the public. Foreign central banks owned 64 percent of the Federal debt held by foreign residents; private investors owned nearly all the rest (figures are from the Analytical Perspectives of the 2006 U.S. Budget, page 257 [1]). The country holding by far the most debt is Japan which held $679 billion at the end of March, 2005. In recent years the People's Republic of China has also become a major holder of Treasury debt, holding $223.5 billion at that time.

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The $1.7 trillion debt for social security represents excess SS taxes that we have paid in over the last couple decades (last year it was about $150 billion) that were supposed to be built up into a SS trust fund to pay the boomers' retirment. Instead, the politicians have stolen the funds from *our* SS trust fund and used them for general spending, replacing them with IOUs, which are really about worthless, because the Govt has to pay SS benefits anyway. The trust fund was supposed to be extra money to help cover the costs.

Having spent the $1.7 trillion that was supposed to be in *our* SS trust fund to cover their deficits, the politicians now have the gall to tell us that SS is in a "crisis." Well, yeah, because they stole the money with their deficits!