The White House has just released the budget for 2007. If approved by Congress, this budget would increase defense spending by 6.9%, cut money from healthcare, education, and the environment all while adding another $354 billion to the U.S. debt. (NPR analysis).
At the end of FY2000, the U.S. debt - the accumulation of the deficit spending of all previous 42 U.S. Presidents - was $5,674,178,209,886.86. Today it is $8,195,544,127,376.07. Bush took office with a budget surplus and a forecast of a cumulative 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. In just 6 years, the party of tax cuts and balanced budgets, under the steady leadership of President number 43 has added 45% to the Ú.S. national debt.
(from a MetaFilter post by threeblindmice)
My take on the debt is that it is bad because it is financed mostly by foreign nations like China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc... As these are our potential rivals/enemies, they may find reason in the future to stop financing our debt and could wreck our economy by selling off their US bond holdings.
The debt is possibly good if our borrowed money is invested wisely. Since much of our budget is dedicated to waging war, the future economic success or failure of America in part seems to hinge on whether or wars in Iraq & Afgahnistan pay off (by giving us control of the energy resources in the Middle East I presume).
2 comments:
man, how could i forget.
I could maybe believe that if there's any country that can make the best investment decisions it's the U.S, in part because, well, we basically control everything. I very much disagree with the decision to start a war in Iraq, but I can't deny that in terms of U.S economic and political (maybe economic moreso as the rest of the world continues to fear/hate us more and more) Return On Investment is potentially huge.
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