Post 16: The national debt

While the national debt has always frustrated me, I don't think I fully realized how massive it really is until I visited New York City last month.

There, the national debt, in ever-increasing numbers, hangs on the side of a building just outside the hub of Times Square. I don't think I really comprehended the horrid state of the national debt until it was broken down into how what my family's portion of that national debt really is -- $104,777. That's my family's income for an entire year, more or less.

For many families, that's twice as much as they make in a year. 

$12.4. Million? No way. Billion? Not even. It's in trillions. $12.4 trillion dollars. Now, I've had a difficult time finding consistent numbers on how much of that has been accumulated since Obama came to office. Some things have said $1 billion. Others $2 trillion. I've seen up to $10 trillion, which I think was just poorly worded journalism.

Nevertheless, the point is that the national debt is increasing. 

I'm writing this in light of President Obama's urging Saturday to pass Democrats' financial regulatory legislation with the argument that it would prevent future recessions and protect small businesses community bankers and credit card users.

But beyond that, I've been contemplating the state of the national debt in light of the recent crumbling of the economy of Greece. 

Experts have been drawing similarities between Greece's economy and ours, something that frightens me, to say the least. Is our economy heading south thanks to an ever-accumulating national debt? I know not. The thinking of most analysts I've seen seems to be along the lines of "We aren't Greece ... yet," has an NPR news analysis piece put it. 

Nevertheless, it's kind of bizarre to think about.

But I have to correct my current number. Perhaps I should have just changed it up top, but it seems more dramatic to do it this way. :)

That$12.4 trillion was true when I was in New York in April. But according to the National Debt clock, it's now $12.94. Trillion. Wow.

Now, perhaps there is some disparity between the two measurements. I'm not in NYC at the very moment as I sit here in Eagle's Nest expounding my thoughts, so I can't check the clock on Wall Street. But I can only imagine it's not too far off the track from that nearly $13 million.

I would like to hear from Obama less about health care and even education reform and more about how he can trim the national debt. 

As my mother always likes to say, 'What would the Founding Fathers think?"

Perhaps one of the most interesting things I've found while researching the national debt is an amusing blog post called "Give me liberty or give me debt" on the Meet the Founding Fathers website. 

George Washington stated,

"Nothing can more affect national prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possibly the incurring of any new debt."

Oh, how far we have come from having politicians who think like that. 

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/the-saturday-word-financial-regulations-and-budgets/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/05/greek_tragedy_not_necessarily.html

http://thefoundationforum.com/2009/04/ffqf-give-me-liberty-or-give-me-debt.html