Beyond Ugly
USA Today reports that each American household now has liabilities of $668,661, which includes a federal debt of $546,668 and personal debt of $121,953. According to USA Today:
“Taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $55,000 a household to cover rising federal commitments made just in the past year for retirement benefits, the national debt and other government promises, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
“The 12% rise in red ink in 2008 stems from an explosion of federal borrowing during the recession, plus an aging population driving up the costs of Medicare and Social Security.
“That's the biggest leap in the long-term burden on taxpayers since a Medicare prescription drug benefit was added in 2003.”
Unable to remember using your credit card to buy all that? Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) says in an editorial, “Well, technically, you didn't. The government did it for you. And USA Today has done us all a favor by taking out a calculator and doing the basic math. It's beyond ugly.” The IBD editorial goes further:
“Looking long term is where it really gets scary. Recently, we learned the U.S. had $101 trillion in retirement and health care obligations over the next 75 years. The only problem is, at current tax rates we'll have only $53 trillion to pay for it all.
“That leaves a gaping hole of $48 trillion.
“It gets worse. The stimulus plans and bailouts pushed into the budget by President Obama and congressional Democrats will add $9 trillion to our national debt over the next 10 years alone.
IBD concludes by saying:
“Two weeks ago, Standard & Poor's warned Britain it could lose its AAA rating because its national debt will soon hit 100% of GDP. Well, guess what? We're heading down the same road. A story in the usually staid Financial Times of London last week said it all: "Exploding Debt Threatens America."
“More brutal was last week's assessment of Russia's Pravda, the former house organ for the Soviet communist regime: "The American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed." Ouch.
“We'd like to disagree, but at least one of those newspapers is right. And unless we Americans stand up and tell our elected officials to stop this insane surge in spending and taxing, we'll pay for it for decades to come.” (emphasis added)
As President Obama told C-SPAN's Steve Scully last weekend:
"Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we've made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we've seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades."