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deals in Cuba that included a rather scary nuclear showdown that led directly into the cold war.

The Cold War began in 1947. The Cuban missile crisis happened in 1962.

Much of the reason we have so much debt is because the social security fund was robbed to pay for the [Vietnam] war and the space race.

Incorrect. A little bit of the reason we have so much debt is due to Vietnam-era borrowing. But to say "much of the reason" doesn't square with this fact: as of Oct. 2011, the Obama administration had incurred more debt that the first 41 presidents combined. (And that statistic is now quite dated. The national debt was $14.8 trillion in Oct. 2011, and $17.1 trillion now.) www.usdebtclock.org

Whatever you say about Rand Paul, at least someone is vaguely thinking about the US National Debt.

$30 billion. How about some perspective. Or the $160 billion spent each year looking for new oil sources. $30 billion is like a bad joke. Let's go for that much per year for a while and move the test dates of ITER up from 2028 to at least 2018. It's past time to get this done, we're really dragging our feet. And while I'm ranting, where's the full size polywell? We can do several things at the same time.
One thing is for sure, fusion will never work unless we actually try to make it work.

Sure, Medicare is $90 Trillion in unfunded liabilities currently.
Debt clock, last line There are TONS of news stories telling this.

I think we can stop at that point and show the complete failure of government run healthcare. We are having trouble figuring out how to save Social Security at $16 Trillion in debt currently.

You have helped to prove my point. The U.S. wasn't bankrupted by military expenditures that were far more massive than those that bankrupted the USSR. Why not? Adherence to free market principles had resulted in decades of economic growth, which in turn allowed the U.S. to easily absorb those massive military expenditures.

In 2013, U.S. military expenses as a percent of GDP are much lower than during the Cold War. What is currently bankrupting the U.S. is entitlements. (The $107 trillion in unfunded liabilities should scare you much more than the $17 trillion National Debt.)

And debt interest. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Getting rich would be an abysmal consolation but apparently, you're not even getting that.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Those are my tax dollars buying those things... I don't want to pay a premium because of your political values.

Actually, it is everyone's tax dollars buying those things, so why should your political values take precedence over anyone else's.

And paying more for a a product or service doesn't create or protect jobs. If I pay $2 for a $1 candybar at the gas station, it doesn't mean the gas station attendant gets paid more;

That doesn't sound like a supportable stance. When the economy gets tight the first thing that happens is a round of layoffs to reduce expenditure. This is in direct opposition to your argument.

In the rush to provide cheaper prices, supermarkets in my area are moving towards self-service checkouts rather than employ extra people. If I want to support the jobs of people in my local community and shop at the only store that hasn't done this, then I have to pay more at the checkout.

If a local manufacturing business can't afford to continue pay the wages of workers in this country then they will outsource production to cheaper countries (like China). Those businesses will still survive (at least in the short term), but it doesn't do much for protecting local jobs.

And if the gas station can't charge $2 for a $1 candy bar, just how will the stations afford to pay the same wages to the attendants? You know, back in the day we used to have full service gas stations, rather than just one person stuck behind a counter. How's that job protection going?

The United States became an economic superpower because it has steadfastly refused to take up the ideology you're preaching: The restriction of international trade, closing of our borders, and producing everything internally

You become an economic superpower by being wealthy, which means selling more than you buy (although being a political and military superpower helps too). You can increase your exports in the short term by opening trade bilaterally, but eventually you just have the effect of evening the playing field until you no longer have superpower status and countries are more equal. To maintain the illusion of superpower status you have to live beyond your means and rely on credit.

But I don't want to sound like I am against free trade. It certainly is important, but it is not the final word in economic policy. If you think that you can open your borders to free trade and then tick the box to say that the economy is done then you are being naive. It is more complicated than that, and rigidly sticking to an ideology without looking at real-world exceptions can be detrimental to society. Sometimes you still need to provide subsidies or protection to local businesses to ensure jobs creation, guarantee of supply, manage environmental impact, etc.

If i knew where you read I it I could judge if you read it wrong but I digress. We live in a consumer economy. That is also a consumer culture. Ever wonder how you make money by consuming things? It's easy. You just bring money into existence via loans or credit to buy things of value. You see money is just a representation of value. Therefore when you build a house worth $200,000 the bank can give you a line of credit to pay for the house. That line of credit is written into existence.

Ever wonder how a country like the U.S. can be 60 Trillion dollars in debt (public and private)? What's China own? 1 Trillion of that debt? A good chunk of that total debt is in mortgages and credit. Where did all that money come from? It was just created in the forms of loans. And why not? Money represents value. So if a house is built that much value has been created. The loan principal is essentially paid back by other loans, its just a bunch of numbers and promises between banks.

It's as if I loaned you $500 by writing myself at -$500 rather than actually having the money. Then when you pay it back I'm back to zero. If I charge interest that's awesome for me. We can't make anything last long because we need to keep replacing it so we can keep making money. Inflation is somewhat depressed because even though you are flooding the market with money you are also creating more things to buy with that money. It's an ingenious system except for one minor flaw. Where do you get the interest from?

Oh, there's another flaw is that the system wants to keep expanding whereas resources and manpower have real-world limits on rates of growth. I'll be generous and assume no limit on growth as new technology and new resources (like asteroids) can come into play. But the rate at which we grow only goes so fast unlike our ability to write money/debt into existence. The total derivatives market is close to 1 quadrillion dollars. Yeah, that's 1000 trillion. There's not even that much stuff in existence so what value is that money really representing?

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

I'm sure California's $427 billion public debt has NOTHING to do with this.

Positive!

http://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-california-debt-clock.html

Thanks Europe. Your debt crisis and failing economic system are a shining star for all the world.

Our debt crisis? Look at that big pink elephant behind you. Oh and it might be red with many golden stars, you know, like from communist China?!

Check out the US Deficit Clock

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

http://www.davemanuel.com/us-national-debt-clock.php

I really wonder where people get some of their numbers from, especially when it comes to defense/military spending. The best numbers I can seem to find are the following with some historical context:
2011 budget proposal
2013 budget proposal (best view by department)
2012 budget proposal
2013 budget table by department
Lots of details here that you can drill down into
current running totals for the current fiscal year
There are probably more good sources I could find that seems like a good start.

What is the author smoking. California currently has $380 billion in devt and a 10.8% unemployment rate. I would call that far from being successful.

If I were the UK, I would not want to model anything after California

Let us ignore the fact that if we got rid of the military tomorrow the next day we would probably be overrun by some other country the following day. Also if we ignore all the other things external to military spending (jobs that are needed to support the military, the money military members spend, etc) your numbers still won't produce a balanced budget. There also is the interest on the debt that is still accumulating that will further increase the debt but we can even ignore that and your numbers don't work. For reference see the following:
There is the obligitory XKCD Money chart
The NY Times "Obama’s 2012 Budget Proposal: How $3.7 Trillion is Spent"
The NY Times "Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It’s Spent"
The NY Times "Four Ways to Slice Obama’s 2013 Budget Proposal" best when viewed by department as it is pretty worthless otherwise
The U.S. National Debt Clock showing the 6 largest budget items.

It's not like eliminating all military spending would magically produce a $500+ billion surplus each year. Yes it would get us much closer to a balanced budget for a few years but there are also major structural issues with Social Security (you can find this in section II Overview pages 2-5) now projected to take in less in taxes that it distributes (in 2022 the trust fund will start to decrease as the interest no longer makes up difference) indefinitely. In 2033 it will be unable to meet the all current obligations. There are also similar issues with Medicare and Medicaid but those are going to be happening sooner.

Now back to real world were things have consequences and we are basically screwed. From what I have read in the past on this subject we are fully capable of digging our selves out of this hole as 13 years ago we were running a budget surplus at the federal level and actually retiring what debt could be. The problem is that everyone wants to keep their government benefit, tax break, subsidy, etc and we have politicians that know that cutting someone's benefit or raising someone's taxes is political suicide so it is just easier to put off the hard decisions until later. That way it is some other congress critter's problem when the shit really hits the fan. In the '90s with Clinton in the White House and Republicans in charge in the house and the senate it was easy with the economy booming the necessary changes were being made and people didn't feel it. Now in a bad economy these changes would be devastating and people might have to break out the pitch forks and torches which no elected official wants.

Real question for the new GOP team is what can they do to stop a US Dollar collapse? Or is it too late already? http://usdebtclock.org/

Politicians should be a minor issue, no different than being a job applicant for the people to hire, based on the applicants ability to integrate and implement the funding instructions of the people

The Government has failed budgeting and accounting massively. http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Why do we still use Voting machines? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV_ZerkPIMU&feature=player_embedded
Contrary to what many think, the U.S. is not a Democracy, its a Republic - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4r0VUybeXY
"No Taxation without representation" So do lying politicians represent you? (one of many links) http://spectator.org/archives/2012/07/31/big-lies-in-politics

So how do we correct these obvious spoiled addiction failures?

Taxpayers are to define where their taxes are to be allocated/used. Me regarding mine and your regarding yours, etc. Like open source or crowd sourcing fund. Option to "trust the government to decide" is also available to those who do, or some portion of their taxes. The tax processors at all the different levels of government (i.e. local, state, federal) are to allocate each taxpayers taxes as instructed by that taxpayer and provide a receipt of having done so. If the tax processing agencies of government cannot do this then we can do this through credit unions and provide the tax processing agencies with receipts to our funding. Government must prove it is using our funding correctly before it is reimbursed (obviously it has unlimited borrowing power otherwise we'd not be in such deficit). It is the debt of the few who created the debt not by the choice of the people but by their own decision. This way they can file bankruptcy rather than bankrupting those not responsible for teh actions of the obviously spoiled.

The voting process is only to determine who to hire to implement the job the taxpayers and voters (who can vote to help determine where the funding of "trust the government to decide") is used. This way "No Taxation without representation" is not violated.

Of course this means government has to be transparent regarding what it believes it needs funding for and each of the people can decide for themselves to fund or not. However, amendment 16 of the U.S. Constitution give power to congress to lay and collect taxes. However if does not and cannot say where those taxes are to be used. Otherwise it would be in violation of the Declaration of Independence (a document that gives each of us the right and duty to do this core change).

Taxes are to be used within the constraint of: Supporting the organized structures for the optimization of teamwork benefits shared and the funding of generating such benefits. Taxes are not to be defined by the tax payers or voters as being beneficial solely to that taxpayer or voter, but must be in a manner of teamwork benefits shared.

The only thing lacking here for this core change to be initiated is the paper work for the taxpayers to define where the taxes they pay are to be used and the allocation system for the tax processors which include a receipt/verification feedback loop. We file tax returns at least once a year, and here is where we allocate/instruct government of where our funding is to be used.

Does any of the babbling of political campaigns express any candidates ability to do this job?

More like $15.889T as the US spirals past the point of never being able to pay it back: http://usdebtclock.org/

So that everyone actually has some reasonable figures to look at you can see the federal budget breakdown in some very detailed manner various places with nice charts and graphics.

There is the XKCD Money chart
The NY Times "Obama’s 2012 Budget Proposal: How $3.7 Trillion is Spent"
The NY Times "Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It’s Spent"
The NY Times "Four Ways to Slice Obama’s 2013 Budget Proposal" best when viewed by department as it is pretty worthless otherwise
The U.S. National Debt Clock showing the 6 largest budget items.

Yes we spend a ton of money on military related spending but contrary to what people think or have been led to believe it is not the majority of the total federal budget. Even if you include stuff like veterans affairs or civil benefits for the military (pensions and health care for retired military) it still isn't as big as people make it out to be.

I may be assuming incorrectly that you feel that the bar for entitlements would be substantially smaller than that for the military. If so you will be quite put out. Some individual entitlements may not be as large as the military budget but taken as a whole entitlements are far larger portion of the budget than the military. A quick search produced this course grained pie chart. If you would like a finer grained breakdown of the budget there is the obligitory XKCD reference. Then there is this (Obama's proposed 2012 budget) chart from the NY Times although there are other ones as well from the NY Times that I have previously found. If you just like spinning numbers there is always national debt clock which lists the 6 largest budget items of which military spending is listed as well as some of the entitlements.

US Debt: $15.7 Trillion.

US GDP: $15.0 Trillion.

You can look this stuff up, the debt to gdp ratio is pretty close to 100%.

Just check this link http://usdebtclock.org/

You know why this is a publicity stunt?

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ [usdebtclock.org]
$15 trillion.
$50k per citizen
$140k per taxpayer.

What does this have to do with climate change? How is the US Treasury's current accumulated debt compared to AGW analogous to a "your house is burning down while your neighbor's dog shits on your lawn" scenario?

LOL

"I watched An Inconvenient Truth 2x in one night, that made me an environmental activist at 12."

Aside from a host of Constitutional issues (I'm pretty certain that the court can't order the Executive branch to sign, nor the Legislative branch to approve, treaties), at a certain point isn't it parents' job to protect their kids from being used like this?

We all know this will chew its way through the courts. A liberal judge will agree, an appellate court will overturn, the 9th Circuit (of course) will support, and it will go to the Supremes. These kids will become famous as "the face of activism of their generation".

Do you think they're serious? Well they sure do:

While the adults continue their argument, Loorz says kids his age are much more worried about climate change than many of their parents might imagine. Indeed, one British survey found that children between the ages of 11 and 14 worry more about climate change (74 percent) than about their homework (64 percent). "I used to play a lot of video games, and goof off, and get sent to the office at school," he said. "But once I realized it was my generation that was going to be the first to really be affected by climate change, I made up my mind to do something about it."

LOL, wow, I'm convinced. He's even given up video games to pursue this. Well, ok; not "given up", just refocused.

You know why this is a publicity stunt?

http://www.usdebtclock.org/
$15 trillion.
$50k per citizen
$140k per taxpayer.

These kids (and the gray eminences using them for publicity) are taking something that - even if it's happening, the human input is not nearly as well-proved as the Faithful would like us to believe - as a critical and *immediate* threat, while ignoring the real critical and immediate threat (but the approach of which would threaten the freedom of action of their own political sponsors).

This is the equivalent of complaining to your neighbor about his dog crapping in your yard, while your house is burning down. It's either a publicity stunt or simply screwed-up priorities...either way it's a gross waste of time and resources. But hey, it's all about filling up the news cycle, not really about constructive actions anyway.

This bit is chilling:

"Sometimes I do ask myself, like is there really any chance to solve this problem?" Loorz acknowledged. "I feel a lot of despair sometimes, but when I talk to Dr. Hansen, he says there is still hope, so I have to trust that he knows more than I do about this."

Leni Riefenstahl is absolutely laughing her ass off. Well played, Herr Gore. Well played.

I like to revisit the US Debt Clock (warning flash heavy) from time to time. If you add in mortgage, personal, and student loan debt it's about ~180k per person. $190k per household is just government debt (total debt per household is closer to $700k, nearly $60 trillion altogether). As for money creation 'Currency and Credit derivatives' are approaching 1 quadrillion.

And yet they have a 200 billion dollar debt. Magic!
http://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-texas-debt-clock.html

A deficit is whatever you spend beyond your present balance, whether you call it a bond or something else.

Of course everyone is in 'all-austerity, all-the-time' mode now for some reason

Probably for 15.5+ trillion reasons...

So you'd fix the problem that we can't possibly pay for Medicare by increasing medicare spending? Sorry: you may not believe in math, but math believes in you.

Also, would it really make sense for medical care to become the dominant sector of the American economy, they way finance used to be? I think that would be even more destructive - what kind of future is there for a country so focused on maintenace and lacking any vision for a revolutionary future filled with wonders? We'd collapse just like Europe, and only a few years later.

us debt: 100,39% debt to gdp ration http://www.usdebtclock.org/
"eu debt" : (80% of GDP) (2010) see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union
indeed ...

that's not a hand-out; it's paid for

It is in the form of IOU's. Bonds.

What do you think the gov did with the bonds it issued? It is long since spent. Probably all gone since about 1998. They are playing some serious accounting tricks to make it look like it is doing ok. Currently it is able to sorta keep up with SS tax income (meaning more bonds being created for future debt to be paid), but it is largely starting to have to borrow (create more bonds) to cover the liabilities they created. It is moving 'obligations debt' to real debt in the form of borrowing. As it does not have the income to cover the *huge* obligations they created. None of that even includes the 'obamacare' yet. That doesnt come for another 3 years.

This shows it a bit better than your graph. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Even if you 100% eliminated defense you would still be overspending by ~900 billion. Defense/SS/Medicare are the biggest things. However there are other obligations. Such as the federal pension fund and just interest on loans that are starting to get much bigger.

So the original poster was right 1.6 trillion to 'hand outs' vs 700 billion for wars. Also your info graphic is about 6 years out of date and it was a proposal which didnt go thru.

That site also has what is going on at the state level too. It is not a pretty picture there either. None of those have defense to worry about at all...

As much as I would have liked to beat up on the Ds they seemed to be more willing to compromise than the Rs. Both parties offered some sort of compromise but it seemed that the Ds were more sincere but it may have all been a facade. Also the Rs basically were in a great starting position since they didn't have to do anything and it would be 100% cuts*. Basically it gave both parties some talking points for the election.

* Remember in Washington a cut is just slower growth. The purpose of the super committee was to cut the projected debt 10 years out by 1.2 or so trillion dollars which could be accomplished if the next base line budget is about $120 billion less than it is currently projected to be. To put this in perspective so far this year the US Federal government has spent $3.6 trillion so $120 billion would be about 3% of our current budget, probably less

http://usdebtclock.org/

You might want to check the rest of our balance sheet.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The "National Debt" might be the biggest number on there, but only in picas.

Harping on our government debt, which is a small fraction of our nation's wealth, ignores the fact that our corporations are sucking all the value out of small businesses and personal hands, even as the balance of payments is draining our total assets into foreign accounts.

And the "unfunded liabilities" number is completely made up. It's not current, and it's not amortized, and it's not even NPV. It's bullshit.

Don't post this without Obama's numbers.

1/20/2009 starting point - $10,626,877,048,913.08
now - $14911609000000+ and climbing.
delta $4,284,731,951,086.92+

increase +40%

As you may or may not know, the first and second parts of GDP are way down. People are not spending money, and businesses are not investing. Moreover, businesses are sitting on trillions of dollars in cash. In such an instance more tax cuts or deregulation (which, incidentally, is what put us in this mess) will not spur the economy.

I'd love to know how you think "deregulation" put us in this mess. One could argue that over-regulation was to blame, not under-regulation. The government-mandated Community Reinvestment Act, as well as other legislation and regulation forced banks to offer loans to people who were high-risk individuals for very affordable rates. This is the direct cause of the bubble, and the resultant housing collapse was a prime trigger of our current economic woes.

Peter Wallison described it fairly well in his wsj article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574475110152189446.html

... it was government policy for these poor quality loans to be made. Since the early 1990s, the government has been attempting to expand home ownership in full disregard of the prudent lending principles that had previously governed the U.S. mortgage market. Now the motives of the GSEs fall into place. Fannie and Freddie were subject to "affordable housing" regulations, issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which required them to buy mortgages made to home buyers who were at or below the median income. This quota began at 30% of all purchases in the early 1990s, and was gradually ratcheted up until it called for 55% of all mortgage purchases to be "affordable" in 2007, including 25% that had to be made to low-income home buyers.

As to how to get businesses to get off their liquid assets - driving up US debt is not going to do that. While it sounds very noble, putting teachers, firefighters, and policemen to work for a year (part of Obama's stimulus plan) is going to do anything significant to stimulate the economy, especially when the money has to come from taxes, printing, or borrowing. Borrowing is the least likely to hurt the economy in the short term, yet as the government continues to accrue long term debts from which it appears unlikely we can easily climb out of (~$45K per capita and rising), it contributes to business' economic fears. Debt has to be paid off at some point, and the more debt the US has, the less will be available for sustained economic movement in the private sector, since it has to siphon a higher percentage of revenue to pay off the interest, meaning more money has to be collected overall to meet its financial obligations.

sigh... I can't understand how people think Keynesian economics makes sense. I'm not a government laissez-faire type person - some regulation is absolutely needed. The problem is that a massive amount of spending, while it may in fact provide stimulation, will also produce negative drains in equal amounts in other economic areas, either directly (taxes) or indirectly (increased debt -> lack of consumer confidence). Borrowing money is the least painful of these options, but because we're already so far in debt, a massive amount of additional debt will put a huge pressure on revenues because of future interest payments. Essentially, our back is against the wall because of previous administration's / congress' reckless spending (all parties). Our citizens are getting older, and Medicare is predicted by some to become insolvent by 2024 (that wonderfully efficient program you're talking about), and our national debt continues to skyrocket.

I don't have a magical answer to fix everything, but it feels like massive government spending as "stimulus" is just digging the hole deeper.

P.S. "death panels" is obvious hyperbole which I probably shouldn't have used, and likely pr

Debt.

By that definition, every insurance policy, every bank savings account, every publicly traded business in fact, is a "ponzi scheme".

Not true. Insurance is a gamble. Some policy holders never see any return at all (if they never need to make a claim). Return on bank savings come from LOANS to different customers who repay the loans at a MUCH higher interest than the bank is paying on savings. Publicly traded business create wealth by making value products out of less valuable raw materials. The comparison is bogus. A ponzi scheme creates nothing - it spends the money invested, and only returns money to early investors to FOOL them into thinking that wealth is being created (or at least not just being lost).

Capitalism, in fact is a ponzi scheme too, by that definition.

You're stuck on this myth that nothing ever gains value, and capitalism is a zero-sum game where everyone tries to gain the largest piece of pie. That's not how it works (at least, that's not how it has worked - what the elites run today and claim is "capitalism" notwithstanding).

The main part that's missing from your definition is that the investors don't know how the scheme is working. The way social security works is public information.

Sort of. But then there's the claim about the "Social Security Trust Fund", which is really just numbers in a book that have to be paid by other taxes somewhere down the road.

Further, by definition a ponzi scheme is unsustainable. Social Security is perfectly sustainable.

Not at all. It can be reformed to last, but in its current form it will bankrupt the workers to support the retired. There will simply be too many retirees and not enough workers if the current trends (and tax / payouts) continue as-is.

It's nothing more or less than an insurance policy.

Again, unclear on the "insurance" concept. Sure, some people will die before age 65, but the average life expectancy is much higher than that today, and could keep getting longer. And everybody that lives will get benefits.

I won't get into the argument with you about whether or not the trust fund full of AAA Treasury Bonds is actually worth anything or not, because most people only know what they hear on the AM radio or Fox News, and that information is wrong.

They are as good as the willingness (and ability) of the US taxpayer to continue paying taxes. How many generations out are now required to deal with the existing liabilities?

No, like all regulation, it just sets a min. bar.

The first step is admitting you have Taxation problem

Current National Debt =~ 14.7 Trillion Dollars
Debt per Citizen =~ 47,000 Dollars
Debt per TaxPayer =~ 131,000 Dollars
US National Spending: 3.6 Trillion Dollars
US Federal Budget Deficit: 1.3 Trillion Dollars

Source: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Working off that idea it seems that they could do even better. Using real numbers, currently Dominos is offering 2 medium 2 toppings pizzas for $5.99 each. So for 21 billion dollars they could provide (at retail price) about 3,500,000,000 pizzas. No according to the US National Debt Clock people there are an estimated 13,823,423*people currently officially unemployed, so for each officially unemployed person could receive about 253 medium pizzas. If we use the real number of unemployed people which is listed as an estimated 24,553,586* then each person would receive about 142 pizzas. Going one step further if we used the total estimated US population of 312,116,629* each person would receive about 11 pizzas.

* These values are the estimated values provided by www.usdebtclock.org at the time of this writing.

Working off that idea it seems that they could do even better. Using real numbers, currently Dominos is offering 2 medium 2 toppings pizzas for $5.99 each. So for 21 billion dollars they could provide (at retail price) about 3,500,000,000 pizzas. No according to the US National Debt Clock people there are an estimated 13,823,423*people currently officially unemployed, so for each officially unemployed person could receive about 253 medium pizzas. If we use the real number of unemployed people which is listed as an estimated 24,553,586* then each person would receive about 142 pizzas. Going one step further if we used the total estimated US population of 312,116,629* each person would receive about 11 pizzas.

* These values are the estimated values provided by www.usdebtclock.org at the time of this writing.

So you want to compare the total take of the entire citizenry to the debt of just the federal government. Ok I raise you the total debt held by the Fed, states, businesses, local governments, and individuals to the GDP, hint it is the red number in the middle that is about $54.9 trillion. That seems like a better comparison, our GDP is only $14.8 trillion so as a total nation we have a debt to GDP ration of about 4:1.

Oh yes vote party line that will help the situation out. OHHHHH thats right your party is the one you want people to vote for.

How many times has the Democratic party has raised the debt in the past 40 years. How many times did the Republican or TEA party do it? The congress (who controlls the budget btw) have been since the early 70s been on a spending jag. Most of that time it was controlled by Democrats. In the past 4-5 years they havent even bothered to show the show that they care anymore. They want to dictate how things are done.

So yeah come next nov I will not be voting for anyone who voted against lowering the spending in our country. As that is exactly what you are advocating.

Your so called 'teabaggers' came up with nearly 5 different plans. That the democrats in the seanat just said no to without even really bothering to read the bill ('lets pass this and see what we get').

You want a better congress make it clear to them you do not vote party line. This will make them stop just looking to the party leaders on how to vote and actually using that freeking thing between their ears.

Also since we are calling people out for what they do. How about Democrats last year passed a bill that they by their own admission they didnt read. Who the hell knows whats in that bill.

It is simple many fiscal conservatives have put it bluntly there is a *HUGE* budget crises in both washington and at most state levels. It is simple something has to go. Paying for people fucking (ha like the pun I made) up is not one of them. I dont care if you get an abortion. But I sure dont want to pay for it no matter the cause... Look life is not fair. It is not up to the government to fix it.

But go ahead look at this page. Go ahead try to make it out as the 'tea parties fault' http://www.usdebtclock.org/ After all they have been 'in charge for 6 months'.
Then remember who was in charge of the spending during most of the past 40 years. But go ahead keep blaming somone else. Anyone but your own elected officals...

You know who could fix the 'party line' issue? The president. He could say 'you vote party line on bills I will veto it'. That would clear the mess right up. The current pressident is too much of a Democrat to even think of doing such a thing.

You know what floored me. I was sitting in new york a few days ago. Which is like Democrat central. A dude says 'if they in any way voted to keep spending like this I am voting against them'. A *BUNCH* of people agreed.

People are pissed. There is 0 excuse for this mess. It 100% wooshed most of the long term politicos in washington what happened last year. People are putting fiscal conservatives in place to fix this mess. They seem to think it is about all these other issues. It isnt. Fix that damn budget.

The democrats gave the money to companies 'too big to fail' who are now laughing all the way to the bank. We get stuck with the bill.

US external debt to GDP ratio is 100%
US public debt to GDP ratio is 78%
http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

I wonder how many members of the Tea Party (at least the few who are not on Social Security or disability)

Wow, just wow. Generalize much?

Most of the people I know that are on disability and social security are 100% not tea party members. It is kind of sad when a drug dealer makes more than someone who works their ass off... Also you have apparently *never* stepped foot in a ghetto or trailer park in the US. You would realize what a f-ng retarded comment you just said is. Trust me they vote democratic because they know where their bread is buttered. They are *very* open about it.

I have talked to some 'poor' people who laugh while they say 'you are so f-ng getting ripped off so I can sit around and watch tv' (exact quote btw). I have also know genuinely poor people. You know what the real poor and the mooches have in common? They both get paid by the gov. The big difference the real poor want a job they *want* to work. They do not want handouts.

The fact of the matter is the gov grew by nearly 40% while the economy went down by an equal amount. If you can not see a problem in that you are off your rocker. When you are in your mid 30s with maxed out credit cards and own nothing and creditors blowing up your phone you will see what I am talking about.

I have been there. I am *NOT* going back. So you will excuse me for being fiscally conservative.

If you think all that arguing was about republicans vs democrats you are *wrong*. It was about jockeying for position for the next set of elections. If they were serious about fixing the issue they would have raised taxes and had sweeping cuts across the board. Then not talking about a 150 billion per year decrease like they pulled something major off. Notice how they keep talking in 10 year increments? They are trying to make the number seem much bigger than it is. They were selling something. Both sides were. The democrats wanted to show they still have power. The republicans wanted to bully their way around (much like another party did last year). Think about this they take in 2.1 trillion a year and its not enough. They spend 3.6 per year now.

Also if you knew you would be out of a check for a couple of weeks but still have a job and would get the 2-3 weeks money anyway would you keep working? Many would. Especially when depending on where you live unemployment is 5-15%.

Your tea party bashing was just silly and made you look more so.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The debt is a one-time sum. (It keeps growing, but it's not an annual accruance.) Income is annual, and repeats. So if you take all the income from every American, they would pay off the debt in 1.17 years -- one year's worth of income, plus about two months from the next year's income. Then we'd have no debt and everyone would get their income back.

If you want to compare apples to apples, then compare personal income to the deficit, which is the amount that the debt is growing each year. The deficit is about 1.4 T. If we tax incomes an average of 11.6% higher then the deficit disappears and we start shrinking the debt.

Perhaps, but what has Obama and company provided? One plan that was summarily rejected - it got 0 votes in favor. His second plan was summarily rejected by the CBO, with its head stating, "We don't do projections on speeches." That's bad. Then, he gets in front of the nation and the first thing out of his mouth was it's Bush's fault, "Our country was heading toward $1trillion in debt." (He forgot to mention he took us to $3.6 trillion.) The next thing out of his mouth was class warfare. Then he went on a rant of this is not how to run a country, blaming Republicans and absolving Democrats (despite Harry Reid's offer of a plan that also did not include tax hikes). A country is run by its leader, and Obama is not a leader.

Besides, it is not the Tea Partiers blocking progress. Boehner and McConnell's plan was a compromise that met some of the President's goals. Then the President changed the requirements.

The Americans wanted "Hope and Change". Sadly, they bought into the non-specifics of the ever-Present senator from Chicago. (Not that the Republicans nominated anyone worthy in 2008 - we got a liberal vs democrat for that general POTUS election). In 2010, the Americans sent a message and as many representatives as they could to DC for the real change they wanted. Can Obama blame these "Tea Party" representatives for doing exactly what they told their constituents they were going to do? Should those representatives do anything different? No.

Let's hope in 2012, we can get more representatives in office that will put their foot down to the extravagant DC spending, those who will think more like the Taxed Enough Already Party with less government, more power to the people.

If there's one thing that can keep the US hanging on to our advantages over China, it's China doing whatever its mafia government can to keep its people down and divided.

You just made my week. What the hell do you think this debt ceiling fiasco is? The debt ceiling was raised 7 times under Bush jr, all without opposition, news attention, or public debate, just as it has been 70 times since JFK, yet somehow this particular time it's earth-shattering news. It isn't a debt debate, it's a debt parade. The entire point is to make it seem like the population has to take the brunt of the debt problems, meanwhile the Federal Reserve (run by private bankers) is the primary debt holder and has the biggest say in whether the debt ceiling is raised or not, moreso than the US Gov't.

And let's not forget that the setting for this circus, the global economic collapse, was brought on by private bankers knowingly engaged in recklessly leveraged mortgages and derivatives. If the banking industry were trying to enslave the American population, making them accept a hopeless debt spiral is the best way to do it. Every US citizen is now over $50,000 in debt plus has over $1M in personal liability on top of their personal debts, thanks to Uncle Sam. Interest on the national debt is the 5th largest expense in the 2011 US federal budget. That is real money that you really owe, and no you didn't miss anything, you really had no say over whether you went into debt or not.

At least China is open about being tyrants. They will at least give you an honest explanation why they're taking your house, and make clear what conduct will let you keep your house. No such guide book exists in the "land of the free". You complain that the Chinese are repressed, overworked, and underpaid, meanwhile there are record numbers of people living in parks and under bridges in the US that would kill to trade places with them, and it's only going to get worse.

Keep on rockin' in the free world

It would be neat to send the robot. It would be neat to do a lot of things. Too bad we're broke...worse than broke...$114.8 Trillion worse. http://www.usdebtclock.org/