Tiptoeing right past us, just like a kid on Christmas Eve, is an epidemic. No, it’s not swine flu; it is the ever-growing deficit.
The deficit for 2009 alone stands at a total of more than $1.4 trillion, more than any generation has seen before. The Congressional Budget Office notes the deficit is 9.9 percent of the gross domestic product, but it also states that tax revenues are the lowest, in terms of the economy, than they have been in the previous 50 years.
Even the national debt is at more than $12 trillion, a staggering number that has had its own clock in New York City since 1989. Of course, in 1989, the National Debt was only $3 trillion and just last year two extra digits were added to the clock. This clock is a sign of the times; a reflection of placing it all on credit.
Although I’m not for higher taxes, I see the need for revenue. We did not necessarily overspend, but we have overextended ourselves. Most of our money goes to transfer payments, the war and interest payments.
So, what got us to this point?
Honestly, I feel like I’m asking a teenager how he or she managed to run off with the parent’s credit card with no thought of the enormous financial implications, most of them involving infamous credit card interest rates.
During the 1920s, also known as the Roaring ‘20s, there were consecutive federal budget surpluses. The next 20 years from there brought World War II, in which massive (and creative) government spending brought the United States out of the depression and into a more productive state of mind.
However, the 1970s and 1980s did not see a single surplus. A significant surplus did manage to come back around in the early 2000s, but it quickly returned to a deficit when the bills for the Iraq war started coming due. Fighting a war halfway around the globe is not cheap; costs are expected to come with it. However, the problem is much larger than that.
We cannot blame this on any one purchase or any one person.
Regardless of war, however, the national debt has increased at an interestingly consistent rate. In a recent Bloomberg interview, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he was less worried about the weak dollar than he was about the long-term costs placed upon the next generation.
Additionally, by increasing taxes, the Congressional Budget Office predicts the budget can be balanced as early as 2016 if GDP remains constant. Of course, that begs a very important question: If our taxes must go up, by how much are they going to be raised?
Finally, where does this public health care option come into play? Doesn’t this just put a skewer in any progress made by President Barack Obama’s spending cuts? Even though those cuts were not as much as they could have been, they still trimmed more fat than doing nothing would have. Still, health care is not cheap, and it will run far more than spending cuts will ever erase.
It will most likely run the United States around the same amount or more money as Social Security or Medicare in order to carry such a health care plan. That’s a scary thought. It’s like taking on another mortgage payment on a house that is not even yours.
College students are stuck in the middle of this, too; our lifetime earnings will be affected by these additional costs through more taxes. This does not make me a happy camper at all. I am left to wonder if the ones in control of the credit card understand bills come due and someone actually has to pay for those bills within a reasonable period of time.
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