The Current Total U.s. National Debt

Government spending in the United States needs to change and it needs to change soon. As mentioned earlier, in 2012 nearly a third of governments budget

Answer: If there is a difference in the spending of government and the in income will lead to the deficits. More over deficits occurs when the amount of government total budget exceeds its total receipt for a fiscal year was said by US senate budget committee. From the US debit clock, largest budget items list are medical, social security, defense/war, income security, net interest on debt, federal pensions. As we can see that the largest budget items every item has its own importance for Medicare the budget is $949 billions, social security is $872 billions, defense is $591 billion, income security is $310 billions, net interest on debt is $245 billion, and federal pensions is $253 billion. A cut back in the spending of the government is not an easy task because which lead to so many issues. Every items has got his own importance consider defense which is a national importance, medical which is health importance, likewise every items has got their own importance. I would recommend cut back on income security in which the budget is allotted to maintain forester care, earned income credit, unemployment compensation, nutrition assistance, family support, making work pay this is meant for the citizens of the social welfare.

When World War II ended in 1949, the debt grew at a slow and steady pace for the next 20 years. When the Vietnam War began in the 1960's the debt accelerated sharply. Thanks to the growth of television and news media, growth of the deficit was widely publicized. For the first time, the American people were given access to what was going on with the nation's debt. When the Gulf War began the early 1990's, the national debt reached a trillion dollars for the first time. By the end of the Gulf War, the government decided to make amendments to fix the continuing problem with the deficit. Despite those promises to reduce spending, the debt is currently at it highest point ever.

Many believe the country's dramatic decent into debt began with a choice, not a crisis. In January of 2001, with the budget balanced, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast that the nation would have over a $2 trillion dollar surplus by 2010, enough money to pay off the entire national debt. In the years following 2001 political leaders chose to cut taxes, increase spending, and wage two wars solely with borrowed funds (Montgomery, 2011). Today the national debt is larger, as a percentage of the economy, than at any time in U.S. history except for the period shortly after World War II.

“To budget is to fight over money and the things money buys” (Document A). The federal budget is adjusted every year and has to follow certain criteria set forward by the Preamble to the Constitution. The Preamble sets five goals that the budget must fulfill, these goals are: to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide for the common defence, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our prosperity. Furthermore, it is difficult to decide what clusters of the federal budget to allocate money to in order to meet the five goals of the Preamble which are “The Big Five”, “The Middle Five”, and “The Little Guys.” In each of the three budget clusters,

Many Americans today are aware that the United States is in debt, however, some may not realize by how much. Currently, the United States National Debt is up to 18 trillion dollars and is steadily increasing. This is a serious problem for the U.S., especially for millennials, who are going to be the ones living and dealing with the debt left behind for them. Increased spending, borrowing from China, and interest on the money borrowed are setting up our economy for an eventual crash, one that the upcoming generation may not be prepared for. Every dollar that accumulates into the debt will have to be repaid with interest at some point, making it harder to pay back. To gain a better understanding of how the U.S. dug itself into such a deep hole, one should start at the beginning of where the debt started.

Government spending began to really grow around 2001. This was partly due to the 9/11 terrorist attack. Additionally, there has been an increase in spending with Social Security and Medicare. In response to

In 2009 the debt was amounted to about $12 trillion , or 83.4 percent of the country’s GDP (“Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2011” table 7.1). Since 2003, the debt has been increasing by more than $500 billion annually. The increase in 2009 was $1.9 trillion. According to the Congressional Budgeting Office, this debt will keep increasing at least for the next decade (“The Budget and Economic Outlook : Fiscal Years 2010 to 2020” 21).

With that being said, one would wonder if all the categories in the Big Five are equally distributed or if the money that is out in one category could be better spent in a different category. One might think that the national debt should be increased. It is essential that the national debt be increased since the country is in deep debt. As stated in Document C, the U.S has more than $10 trillion in debt. Being so deep in debt can disturb our already fragile economy and borrowing additional money can threaten the livelihoods of Americans. One category that could be decreased is Defense. The cartoon in Document F shows President Obama writing the budget, and three figures standing before him, two small ones and one big

Segal (2010) points out that America has not had a balanced budget since 2001. In 2008 the US national debt held by foreign holdings was at 48%, while the public debt was at $5,461 billion (Segal, 2010; National priorities org, 2014). The national debt last reported was on October 2013 and had reached 17 trillion dollars, the same amount as the debt ceiling (National priorities Project, 2013).

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that interest payments on US debt will increase from 1.2% of GDP in 2009 to 3.9% in 2020, which could significantly dampen GDP growth. Mankiw projects that the current deficits have already reduced national income by 3 to 6 percent, which could conceivably increase in the years to come.

The third category, spending and interest, accounts for the littlest of the three categories. In lament terms, Social security, military and healthcare account for the majority of our budget. This is no surprise because Social Security and healthcare are both mandatory spending (services our programs we rely on) and the military is discretionary spending (services or programs we rely on), and as stated above, this accounts for the majority of our spending, thus our debt. We rely on these services on a daily basis, and the baby boomers continue to age, the cost spends on social security and Medicare will continue to grow. The same goes for healthcare. As healthcare continues to be costly, the amount spent on Medicaid and insurance providers will continue to grow as well. After reading and understanding where the money is spent, when I took the Concord Coalition’s Federal Budget Challenge, I had a better realization of how little things can improve the deficit in big ways.

The national debt occurs in an indecisive period. It is expressed as gross domestic product (GDP), because the debate on the size of government and the effects of its debt are often focused on how the economy of a country is consumed by government. This measure also takes into account the population growth, some of the effects of inflation, and the relative capacity of government to service its debt. This kind of debt can show a lot about the state of the economy. The national debt relative to GDP is much lower today than it was during the Second World War about the US economy. Therefore, it is average in developed countries.

Thomas Jefferson once stated, "I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt" (Bussing-Burks, 7). A lot has changed since Jefferson was President two hundred years ago, but the need to be financially solvent is something that will always be necessary for the United States to maintain its leadership position in the world. The United States of America currently owes $16.7 trillion in debt primarily as a result of the government’s spending practices during the last ten years. Two wars, several fiscal collapses, the bursting of the bubble in the housing market, looming medical care costs from an

Assuming that the nominal interest rate, the inflation rate, the real GDP growth and primary deficit remain constant for the next year, we can compute the projected next year end debt as a percentage of GDP by using the equation: