Quote:
Originally posted by james t kirk
Well yes and no. Who do you want to compare yourself to?
Britain has no debt. (It's illegal to run a deficit in the UK)
Canada's debt rate is less than that of the US.
Germany's debt rate is less than that of the US.
France and Italy, both have rediculous debts.
Japan is a financial basket case.
I hear you and i understand the concept, but if you ever listen to any investment expert they will always tell you that if you should come into some money, it is best to pay off your debts.
Not all debt is bad, i understand that, and I do it myself, but there has to be a limit. I have borrowed money to make investments, but they are investments. There in lies a fundamental difference. I am not borrowing cash to finance my day to day operations of my household. I might borrow to buy an asset, but not to buy food.
I am also trying to pay my debts down.
Here's a link to US federal DEBT, not deficit, DEBT.
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm
Here's a link to stats can for the situation that i am more familiar with...
http://142.206.72.67/03/03a/03a_005d_e.htm
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You are absolutely right in your descriptions but there is a lot of room for interpretation as far as the "day to day" operations classification goes. Is the new medicare bill a "day to day" operation or an investment? If it decreases the number of days in the hospital for seniors or decreases numbers of procedures that would otherwise have been picked up by the government anyway, it would be an investment. The same thing could be said about countless other programs that have contributed to the national debt.
I fully believe that the debt should be paid down, but not at the expense of the things that need to be done by our government to insure our nation's future.
As far as comparing debt levels internationally, you also need to compare economic performance and potential. Are the countries with low levels of debt outperforming us in terms of economic growth? No, not really. Does the US government have a poor credit rating? No. Is there a real threat that we will not be able to pay when the bonds that finance this debt are called for payment? No.
Can we continue to spend indefinitely without fear? Nope. Does the government need more of the tax payers money to operate? Hell no. If anyone thinks that increased taxes will lead to less debt, they haven't learned from history. The more money the government takes in, the more it spends. People need to demand, through their voting, that the pork gets cut, that non-performing programs be terminated, that politicians are held accountable for spending our money. You may say this flies in the face of my support for Bush's spending. I say it doesn't because I want the unnecessary programs to be eliminated not the programs we need.
The big spends from Bush:
Homeland security, we need.
Defense spending, we need.
Drug benefit for seniors, we need.
Funds to rebuild Iraq, we need.