The federal debt is not officially calculated the way that other accounting is done. Future obligations are not included, thus promising ever larger payments for health and retirement programs are not accurately reflected in government official debt totals. There are some legitimate arguments for why using exactly the same standards as others does not make sense for the federal government accounting. However the current methods make it too easy for politicians to claim they are not spending our grandchildren’s money for promises they make today. Rules ‘hiding’ trillions in debt:
Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.
Foisting debts on our grandchildren because we elect politicians that refuse to either cut spending (and promised spending) or raise taxes is a sad legacy of the last 30 years for the USA.
Related: Washington Paying Out Money it Doesn’t Have - Is the USA Broke - The Fallacy of Estate Tax Repeal - Social Security Trust Fund
Comments
12 Comments so far
My perception (though it is just an opinion based on limited facts) is that topsoil loss is a problem and that using corn for ethanol is more a federal government payoff to buy votes than a wise national policy…
if the government incurs a deferred liability to pay $100 Billion dollars in future social security payments this year and invests that money in treasury bonds they act like the government didn’t spend that money. Of course it did, they took $100 billion in social security taxes and spent it to build bridges to nowhere, pay huge corporate welfare payments, other worthless wastes…
[...] enough economy to sustain a large negative impact from the health care system (other example: a huge amount of government and consumer borrowing - ludicrasly overpaid senior executives). This situation is very similar to a company being able to [...]
And to manage your investments you need to understand the great risk of a rising debt load (whether it is you personally or a country)…
i suggest that the rothschilds print up one million fresh dollars for every us citizen and mail the check out asap so they can pay off all their bills and all the bush and federal debts that are piled up now. this way the country can get a fresh start, every one take a 3 months vacation, buy two new cars and let the rocks and gang pick up the whole tab.
[...] think a country that is more than $500,000 in debt per household should not send out checks to taxpayers to try pretend they are doing something to help the [...]
There are now numerous risks to the economy (high gas prices, credit crisis, housing crisis, huge federal debt, huge consumer debt…). Still it is amazing how well the economy is doing…
“The new Medicare prescription-drug benefit alone would have added $8 trillion to the government’s audited deficit. That’s the amount the government would need today, set aside and earning interest, to pay for the tens of trillions of dollars the benefit will cost in future years…”
I am not exactly sure why but for some reason people seem very ignorant of the wealth distribution by age. The richest individuals, by far, are those over 65…
I think they underestimate our ability to ignore. For example we have over $500,000 in federal government debt per household and continue to raise taxes on future generations without any guilt…
The government’s “continued financial irresponsibility is a large part of the reason for the declining value of the dollar”
[...] world savings glut has overwhelmed the excessive borrowing done by the federal government and private sector and kept interest rates lower than seemed reasonable. That may finally change - [...]