For those who are worried about the $1.75 trillion deficit that President Barack Obama projected the government would run in fiscal 2009, wait until you see what the interest on the growing U.S. debt will be.
The U.S. debt is roughly $10.6 trillion and the government spent $253 billion servicing it last year. With the mounting yearly deficits, that cost is skyrocketing.
During the debate over the $787 billion economic stimulus plan aimed at pulling the U.S. economy out of its downward spiral, Republicans argued that the cost was really over $1.1 trillion because of the cost to service the additional debt.
Lest folks think that current low borrowing costs would make the burden a little lighter, Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget projected that during his upcoming four years in office the cost will run roughly $1 trillion.
How does spending $447 billion just in interest payments on the debt in 2013 sound? And $694 billion in 2019 alone? If you want to see those shocking figures in black and white, see page 117 of Obama’s budget. It’s worse than opening your monthly credit card bill and looking at the finance charges on the unpaid balance.
For more Reuters political news, click here.
- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (A government employee looks over a sheet of partially printed U.S. currency.)
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[...] Front Row Washington » Blog Archive » Think the U.S. deficit is bad? Check out the interest paymen… - [I love how this article keeps referring to the Obama budget, as if our debt didn't come from all those Bush budgets of yesterminute. --Lee.] [...]
- Posted by Links for February 25th through March 13thlet us be reminded of when/how the national debt got the way it did. The national debt was relatively small until Reagan/Bush 1. Clinton raised it but at a slower clip and started to bring it down. Bush 2 added nearly $4T to it. Between Reagan and the Bush’s, they added almost $10T dollars (see whitehouse.gov budget office to confirm). While I agree with the GOP on it being unfair for 20% of the population providing 70% of the revenue to run the federal gov, you can’t help but see the hypocrisy when it comes to fiscal discipline…from both parties.
Obama right now is going to add another $2-4T to the national debt. Although I think it is important to modernize elements of our infrastructure and the way we operate, we need a plan for paying the national debt, not just interest on it. that’s like us as individuals continuing to rack up credit card balances, pay interest only, and never pay principle, when the heck do you expect to be out of debt? never….we need a plan to pay the national debt and a better tax system that makes the bottom 75% pull their weight and help pay to run the US. We as a people our a reflection of the government and vice versa. Both the government and the people of this country have tacked on debt like crazy for decades. The government should provide the example in this case so that people can be a reflection of the government’s fiscal responsibility. No one is going to see the value when we see that our own representatives are irresponsible and can seemingly take on endless debt.
As far as the current deficit, I don’t see another way to tackle the problem. Government spending is the last resort in situations like this. Japan learned that the hard way. They tried little things here and there but ultimately it was the government that had to pick up the slack while banks cleaned their books. Once the banks get their stuff together the fed can clean it’s books. Letting this collapse and rebuild is not an option. It may take decades to recover with that approach. With that approach, the top 20% would be ask to shoulder even more of the burden and it will cost them even more in the end. leaving the bottom 80% out to dry w/o healthcare, medicare, and other social services will end up coming out of our pocket anyway, might as well attempt to control how we spend it. it sucks, but until we have a better system of paying for the government the top 20% will continue to be the “beasts of burden”. We need a “fairer” tax system, the current one sucks.
- Posted by RM