The $3.8 trillion 2012-13 federal budget proposed by President Barack Obama instantly became a political football among partisans. Among the pundit class, the conventional wisdom is that the spending plan is more a campaign document to help the president win re-election. Given that Congress hasn’t passed an actual budget in three years, this cynicism is defensible.
But at some point we wish everyone – the political class, the media, taxpayers of all ideologies – would just accept this as a given: As a nation, we can’t continue spending vastly more than we take in. The Obama plan, if enacted, would add $901 billion to the national debt. This is less than in recent years but still enormous on a historical scale – the U.S. spending 31 percent more than it receives in revenue.
A household that for years on end spent 31 percent more than it took in would soon be spending more on interest on debt than on most priorities. As a nation, we are already there. In 2010-11, the federal government spent $454 billion in interest on the national debt – 12 percent of the entire budget. That’s only going to go up, up and away unless deficits are finally, substantively addressed. We w
Link:It’s math, not politics: Vast debt a killer | UTSanDiego.com
No comments:
Post a Comment