Several of the responses that I have seen from the Left in recent days, and, alas, from the Right, compels me to believe that not only does the public and the elite not grasp the true depth of the fiscal Armageddon facing the Republic, their ability to avoid grasping it is the single greatest feat of mental malfeasance, of willful blindness, in history.
I have added the National Debt Clock to my site, so you can see the numbers in all their glory of what you owe our leaders. Mark the numbers marching like the mindless broomsticks in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, whose endless advance no ax can stop.
I have found a brief and clear explanation of this depth.
Federal debt began the 20th century at less than 10 percent of GDP. It jerked above 30 percent as a result of World War I and then declined in the 1920s to 16.3 percent by 1929. Federal debt started to increase after the Crash of 1929, and rose above 40 percent in the depths of the Great Depression.Federal debt exploded during World War II to over 120 percent of GDP, and then began a decline that bottomed out at 32 percent of GDP in 1974. Federal debt almost doubled in the 1980s, reaching 60 percent of GDP in 1990 and peaking at 66 percent of GDP in 1996, before declining to 56 percent in 2001. Federal debt started increasing again in the 2000s, reaching 70 percent of GDP in 2008. Then it exploded in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008, reaching 102 percent of GDP in 2011.
(Source: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_debt which is explained in more detail here and ultimately comes from www.gpo.gov.)
Keep in mind what we are discussing. GDP is the gross domestic product, an economic shorthand for the total value of all goods and services produced by the entire American economy. Now, over one hundred percent, or, in other words, all of the economic activity of the National economy for this year is insufficient to pay our bills.
It is insufficient even if the entire economy, all of it, every penny earned by every man, woman, child and talking dog went immediately to service the debt, and not to any other use whatever.
This figure does not include state and local deficit spending, nor unfunded mandates like Medicaid. Nor does it include personal debt.
The money is gone. All of it is spent, and all the nation will ever make.
Raising taxes on the rich will not do anything. Even if all the wealth of everyone worth more than a quarter million a year were confiscated outright, all of it taken, one hundred percent, it would not do anything. For that matter, pulling the plug on PBS, Big Bird and all, will not do anything. These are purely ceremonial gestures, meant as political theater.
We are so far in debt that our children working their whole lives cannot pay back what has already been spent.
And our grandchildren, working all their lives.
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