I am selecting the article below in order to put a personal face on the national debt. I think it is a fair article. However, the kind of fiscal responsibility and management skill needed to address the crisis is lacking in the Obama Administration. This is so not only for the President but the whole administration which thinks wrongly concerning the way to lower the deficit, create jobs and foster employment. Besides the 23 million unemployed, we are looking at businesses afraid of burdensome federal regulations and therefore they are willing to close USA workplaces in favor of opening in foreign countries. Is that patriotic? Probably not ! But patriotism works two ways. It is not patriotic to ask businesses and business people to achieve against a federal government that sues them while at the same time increasing their regulatory compliance burden and upping their taxes. The “Yes, we did build it” campaign of the Republicans does not discount a favorable government, that indeed has been there in SBA loan guarantees and Federal farm subsidies. But without the vision, the dedication and the innovation of the business founders and owners there would be no business. And the workers,(?) they contribute to making the vision of the owner a reality for which they receive a wage and benefits and the owner and stockholders a profit. But you cannot reverse the process. Gather 100 people together and tell them to get to work and make a profit. They will ask, doing what? producing what? and how do you want us to do it? The inventiveness and entrepeneur ship of the owner/founder is a prerequisite for jobs. I believe the Romney Ryan approach will accomplish what only good businessmen can do, and even Clinton acknowledges Mitt’s “sterling” business ability. We don’t need a lawyer in the WH, we need a businessman. Let the 500 lawyers in the Congress decide the law. Yes, I do know that there are 535 congress persons, but not all are lawyers.
By Gordon Gray, Director of Fiscal Policy at the American Action Forum
The Treasury Department has confirmed that the national debt exceeded $16 trillion at the end of August. This figure is so large as to be almost an abstraction, a figure divorced from any tangible context. However, under current fiscal policies, this unprecedented degree of national indebtedness is only expected to grow, both in absolute terms and as a share of the economy.
The national debt is the net effect of all past economic policies — the accumulated difference between all past revenues and outlays. Prospectively, a rising debt necessarily reflects a persistent excess of outlays relative to revenues, or put another way, a shortfall of revenues relative to outlays. Any policy approach that would close this gap must therefore reduce outlays in the form of government benefits or services, increase revenues in the form of higher taxes, or some combination of the two. Any policy choice to address the broader debt or future deficits will therefore ultimately be borne by taxpayers. The abstraction becomes personal.
By the Numbers
As of Friday, August 31st, the debt stood at $16.016 trillion. Since the president took office, that number has increased by $5.389 trillion. To the extent that this increase in debt burden under the president is ultimately borne by individuals, it is reasonable to apportion the national debt increase on a per capita basis. This amounts to $17,146 per person.
The United States must pay interest on its debt obligations. At present, the average interest rate paid on U.S. debt is 2.62 percent. This rate represents interest owed not only to U.S. creditors in the public, but also to non-marketable securities, such as federal trust funds. The relatively low rate reflects low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve and the global perception of Treasury securities as a virtually riskless investment, which keeps yields at bay. This rate compares quite favorably to consumer credit rates. For example, as of the end of August the average variable-rate credit card APR was 14.52 percent.
Is a Pay-Off Even Possible?
Thus any individualized analysis of the recent increase in federal indebtedness depends heavily on interest rate assumptions. Both the low-bound assumption (the current low average federal borrowing rate) and the high-bound assumption (the average credit card rate) reflect a sufficiently high increase in indebtedness under the current administration to require over a decade to fully pay off. Indeed, using the Federal Reserve’s pay-off calculator that includes standard assumptions about minimum payment requirements, assuming an individual debt balance of $17,146, and the low-bound interest assumption of 2.62 percent, it would take 18 years to fully repay the debt increase under President Obama, with an initial minimum payment of $343. This payment would diminish over time to reflect a lower principal balance. Under the high-bound interest assumption, it would take an individual 36 years to repay $17,146 in debt with an initial minimum payment of $343.
The bottom line is simple: if an American put $17,000 on her credit card, she would face over 35 years of the burden of repaying. In the past four years, the President has done exactly that.
Gordon Gray currently serves as the Director of Fiscal Policy at the American Action Forum (AAF). Prior to joining AAF, Gray served as senior policy advisor to Senator Rob Portman and as policy director on the Senator’s campaign. Gray has also worked for the Senate Budget Committee as professional staff and before that was deputy director of domestic and economic policy for Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign. Gray also spent several years with the American Enterprise Institute.
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