Monday, April 12, 2010

Debt, Deficit, Unfunded Liabilities

Back in 1998 I published the first tri fold addressing some background on Social Security and Medicare which included a pie chart showing the national budget with some statistics in actual dollars as well.

What with Bernanke, Geithner and other assorted "experts" all over the place talking about our unsustainable debt and that we will have to raise taxes or cut to "bare bones" the scare tactics have begun so we will all go running to big daddy crying that we will pay anything and accept anything, big government wise, if he will only save us. Never saw so many trial balloons at one time in my life. We'll address those at a later time, but right now let's talk about the debt.

In 1998 The National Debt stood at $5.5 Trillion and was growing.At that time it was clearly traceable to 40 years of Democrat control of Congress.

Also, at that time and in subsequent years 2000 and 2002 the percentage of the budget spent on Interest to service that debt fluctuated between 10% and 11%. That first year I had no figure for the Unfunded Liabilities. In 2000 the debt moved to $5.71 Trillion with unfunded liabilities at $7 Trillion. That means the money owed to the Social Security fund was not counted in the budget! By 2002 the debt had stabilized at $5.651 Trillion but the unfunded liabilities had climbed another $2 trillion to $9 trillion making the debt's actual total: $15 Trillion.

So where do you think we will find ourselves today? And FINALLY it appears that someone is getting excited about it other than just a few conservative economists. And me. I'll try to dig up the actual number for 2010--anyone want to guess?

Pray for your children-
God bless.............

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The following is a link to the U. S. Debt Clock: http://www.usdebtclock.org/

It shows that the National Debt is now 12.8 Trillion dollars, $41,441 per every man, woman and child citizens living in the U.S.

It shows that the Unfunded Liabilities, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and othe unfunded liabilities are now 108 Trillion dollars. $350,230 per man, woman and child citizens living in the U.S., $1,050,000 owed by every taxpayer in the U.S.

Pretty grim and nearly impossible without some serious sacrifice and hard work!
Bruce Barlond