US debt will keep growing even with recovery

[TwixVoy]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – It's bad enough that Greece's debt problems have rattled global financial markets. In the world's largest economic and military power, there's a far more serious debt dilemma.

For the U.S., the crushing weight of its debt threatens to overwhelm everything the federal government does, even in the short-term, best-case financial scenario — a full recovery and a return to prerecession employment levels.

The government already has made so many promises to so many expanding "mandatory" programs. Just keeping these commitments, without major changes in taxing and spending, will lead to deficits that cannot be sustained.

Take Social Security, Medicare and other benefits. Add in interest payments on a national debt that now exceeds $12.3 trillion. It all will gobble up 80 percent of all federal revenues by 2020, government economists project.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100214/ap_on_bi_ge/us_deficit_crunch

[tridim]

1. Really? I didn't know that.

:eyes:

In related news, water is wet.

[napi21]

2. It's quite amazing how quickly the National Debt can drop when employment rises,

and the US Dollar value improves and stabelizes. What's going to keep the trade deficit out of balance is the amount of things that used to be made here but are now made offshore. Most Americans WANT those cheap prices that Foreign products give them. Some out of necessity & some out of choice.

Try to think back to the days When Clinton was Prez. He too went through a recession, but when people started going back to work, and then of course the rabid interest in the internet co's happened, there was actually talk of wether we SHOULD actually retire the National Debt! I remember Greenspan talking about that.

I'm certainly not recommending another bubble, but I berlieve you are being too pessimistic.

[HillbillyBob]

3. We don't buy anything that we can do without

and use credit very sparingly..have had to been at the bottom of runnyrayguns drizzlin shits since 82.

[winyanstaz]

5. I hear you Hillbillybob....

A penny hasn't been pinched that hasn't been squeezed by me....:P I know all the tricks to stretch a penny.
I wrote a song about Reagan's mess..It's called "Singing for my Supper."
It might actually be on line soon one of these days.
I just don't see any real recovery without jobs and thats the bottom line.

[Quixote1818]

4. We need to get taxes on the rich back up to pre-Ronald Reagan levels

At least 70% for the top bracket.

[Dave From Canada]

6. 70%? That's insanity.

[quaker bill]

8. In the 1950's it was 90 percent

and economic growth was quite strong. Perhaps we have had it all wrong and making the rich work harder for their wealth is a good thing.

[Dave From Canada]

10. That's fine, but in the 1950's, the only real economic competition came from Europe. Now, it's a

world wide global economy. If you want to put American businesses at a disadvantage, if you want to drive up outsourcing, if you want to drive out businesses and corporations to other countries, and if you want to put a halt on any new hiring, then by all means, raise tax rates to 70 or 90%.

After WWII, most countires economies were in ruins. America had a virtual monopoly, especially in terms of manufacturing. That's an advantage that no longer exists.

[keep_it_real]

7. Why no commission for military cut?

How long can America rule the rule with military force alone?

[TexasObserver]

9. When has the debt NOT been growing the past 40 years?

Answer: Only for periods under Clinton and Carter.

The debt grew every minute of every day a Reagan or Bush was in the White House.

[Mike 03]

11. Another way to put this US debt will grow inevitably because of recovery

I don't think anybody disputes this, not even to CBO or nobel prize winning economists.

The issue is whether we can afford two years of stimulus in spite of the fact it juices the debt, which it most obviously does.

And the rest of the industrialized world is also resorting to stimulus to do the same thing.

K and R, for further discussion. This is a great topic.

[Mike 03]

12. Quite frankly, I wish I could rec a post like this more than once, because this is

where the rubber meets the road. This is what we need to be talking about right now. Not Alec Baldwin or American Idol.

Thank you for raising this.