America For Purchase

The following graph shows how the National Debt has grown year by year since 1940 to 2005 in actual dollar amounts, uncorrected for inflation:

What is interesting to note is that fifty years ago, the debt was huge because WWII was very expensive. Afterward, both parties wisely cooperated to pay down the huge war debt. President Gerald Ford ® was the first president to break with that tradition. From that point forward, every Republican worked hard to push us deeper into debt, every Democrat worked hard to get us out of debt.

What can you do about the debt, the Bush tax cuts, and the cost of the Iraq War? 

Write or call your U.S. Senators and your Representative. Tell them your concerns and ask them what they’re doing to reduce both the Deficit and the Debt. If you don’t like their answers, vote them out of office!

This February, in the president’s annual budget submission to Congress, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) predicted the federal deficit for fiscal year 2008 would come in at $410 billion however economic analysis say that figure is too low and could reach as high as $500B.  The deficit is the fiscal year difference between what the US Government takes in from taxes and other revenues and the amount of money the Government spends.

Adding to that staggering figure is the US debt.  This is a combination of the total US deficit, plus accumulated items not included in the traditional US budget.  The deficiencies require the US Treasury to borrow money to raise cash needed to keep the Government operating. 

The largest accumulated debt is the cost of the Iraq war.  To date the US Government has spent over $520,000,000,000,000 (that is $536 Billion) dollars.  Let’s figure this out – that equals $4,681 owed per each American household – that equals $1,721 per person and that means the US Government is spending $341.4 Million per day to cover the cost of George Bush’s war.

Now in additional to all of this, George Bush borrowed an additional $100,000,000,000 (that is $100 Billion dollars) to support his economic stimulus package, which most Americans have or will be receiving in the next couple of months.

The following statistics may be obtained from the US Government’s Dept of the Treasury website:

http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt  This is the amount of money the US Government has borrowed from foreign countries to support our outstanding debts and keep the government running:

Country          Mar   2008  (In Billions of US Dollars) 

                     —— 

Japan                $600.7  

China, Mainland       490.6  

United Kingdom 2/     202.6  

Oil Exporters 3/      150.8  

Brazil                149.1  

Carib Bnkng Ctrs 4/   108.3  

Luxembourg             92.7   

Hong Kong              60.5   

Norway                 44.5   

Russia                 42.4   

Germany                42.1   

Switzerland            41.2   

Taiwan                 41.2   

Korea                  40.7   

Mexico                 38.8   

Singapore              33.1   

Turkey                 28.7   

Thailand               25.7   

Canada                 20.1   

Ireland                17.8   

Netherlands            15.1   

Sweden                 13.2   

Belgium                12.8   

Egypt                  12.7   

India                  11.8   

Poland                 11.6   

Italy                  11.3   

Philippines            10.8   

All Other             148.4  

Grand Total                                $2,519.6 (That’s $2 Trillion, $519 Billion plus)

Tags Bush tax breaks Bush tax cuts government spending Iraq War John McCain national debt national deficit Republican tax payers U S Budget U S Debt U S Deficit

Filed under: U S Economy