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Republicans: Help me with economics, please?
The national debt was about $5.7 trillion when Bush took office in January 2001. Today, after almost eight years and a couple of "wars", the debt has risen to about $9.7 trillion.
And, by the way, that figure might rise another $1 trillion or so before Bush steps down on Jan. 20.
The national debt ceiling today is $10.6 trillion. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson wants Congress to raise that to $11.3 trillion to clear the decks for massive borrowing to deal with the nation’s financial crisis.
A national debt of $11.3 trillion would come to more than $37,000 each for every man, woman and child in the United States.
And all this comes during an era of allegedly conservative, fiscally responsible Republican domination in Washington.
How are we all going come up with $37,000 to fix this mess?
Country First?
7 Answers
- Anonymous1 decade agoFavorite Answer
"Republicans: Help me with economics...?"
A little like asking Genghis Khan for help with gentility isn't that?
- Nobama!Lv 51 decade ago
Noone said the last years were an era of fiscal conservativeness.
And two years of that were controlled by Democrats in Congress.
Now the ugly truth is that no one can fix it as it stands. The federal budget is divided into discretionary and mandatory spending. This latter part the President cannot control (so-called entitlements).
Mandatory spending accounted for 53% of total federal outlays in FY2007, with net interest payments accounting for an additional 8.6%. Discretionary outlays, which rely on annual appropriations for funding, accounted for 38.2% of total federal outlays in FY2007. Over the past four decades, the proportion of federal outlays spent on mandatory programs has increased on average.
So if you are truly concerned about the budget, don't elect someone promising to spend more (Obama) and then petition your representatives to cut entitlement programs which account for so much of the growth.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
So why did the democrat Congress just vote to increase the national debt to $11.3 trillion?
Did Bush make them do it?
(It was written into the bail out law. Apparently, democrats don't need a war to spend like drunken sailors.)
- Anonymous1 decade ago
How are we all going come up with $37,000 to fix this mess?
If you are suggesting that we vote for Obama to clean up this mess you are nuts. Obama plans more spending in his first term than bush did in two terms as president. Bush screwed up. He adopted a liberal democrat economic policy and we as americans got screwed. So electing another liberal democrat with a liberal democrat economic policy (Obama) will only make it worse.
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- Anonymous1 decade ago
Vote for change.
McCain 08!
- 1 decade ago
Yeah...and can you believe that Barack Obama wants to spend $10 trillion more????? OMG who is going to fix that mess???? US!!!!
McCain08
- Anonymous1 decade ago
I suppose we could just let the government give us the money.
