With the discussion in congress and across the country about the healthcare reform bill, I decided to see what our debt looks like since this bill will cost us another $1.5 trillion plus over the next 10 years. And since this is a government estimate, you can be sure the amount will be much higher.
So, here's where we've been with debt in the last 100 years. In 1910, the US had $2.6 billion in debt. No guess on what the percentage of GDP that was. In 1940, a year we had a good estimate of our GDP, we had $43 billion in debt, representing 52% of GDP. Why so high? Our federal government had gone into massive debt to try and end the "recession". Instead, they created a depression causing high debt along side a lower GDP. By 1950, the numbers were really bad. Our debt had risen to $257 billion, representing 94% of GDP. DAMN. But, this was the result of WW2. BUT, all that spending on wartime technologies and industry to win the war ended up producing fantastic dividends and by 1960, our debt had gone up a bit more to $291 billion but by that time it represented 56% of GDP. By 1970, our debt was up to $381 billion but represented only 38% of GDP. Again, our debt from WW2 had been shoved into worthwhile investments (not all but mostly) and had driven our economy up much faster than our debt. By 1980, our debt had risen to $909 billion, but gone down to 33% of GDP.
Many things began to change in the 1980's. Manufacturing was starting to stall. Japanese cars became more popular. The first of Chinese made goods started hitting our shores. By 1990, our debt had more than tripled to $3.2 trillion representing 56% of GDP. By 2000, after the go-go 90's, we still saw our debt go up, to $5.6 trillion representing 58% of GDP. During the Bush years, we saw a 12 point jump in debt as a percentage of GDP. See below:
|
Year
|
Debt
($ in billions)
|
%
of GDP
|
|
2001
|
5,769.9
|
57.4
|
|
2002
|
6,198.4
|
59.7
|
|
2003
|
6,760.0
|
62.6
|
|
2004
|
7,354.7
|
63.9
|
|
2005
|
7,905.3
|
64.6
|
|
2006
|
8,451.4
|
65.0
|
|
2007
|
8,950.7
|
65.6
|
|
2008
|
9,985.8
|
70.2 |
Not pretty huh? Thanks islam! Thanks spend crazy Bush and Republican congress. Thanks spend crazy Democratic run congress those last 3 years! Thanks Democrats for creating the mortgage mess by demanding that mortgages be made to poor people and others who can't afford those mortgages (STUPID.) Scared? Here's the scary part.
It is estimated that US debt will grow to $12.9 trillion, 90% of GDP in just one year of Barak Hussein Obama as President and with the Democratic run congress. And it doesn't stop there. See below:
|
Year
|
Debt
($ in billions)
|
%
of GDP
|
|
2009
(est.)
|
12,867.5
|
90.4
|
|
2010
(est.)
|
14,456.3
|
98.1
|
|
2011
(est.)
|
15,673.9
|
101.0
|
|
2012
(est.)
|
16,565.7
|
100.6
|
|
2013
(est.)
|
17,440.2
|
99.7
|
|
2014
(est.)
|
18,350.0
|
99.8
|
We never need a communist/marxist government as we have now with Obama and the democrats in congress. Further, we need a much smaller federal government. One that gives us twice the output for 1/4 the costs. We need proper regulation of our financial industries. But, we need the government to get out of trying to manipulate those industries. We have no healthcare crisis. We do have healthcare inefficiencies. But, those are due to GOVERNMENT rules, mostly. We need the government to kill this reform bill and get the heck out of the way. What do we want:
- Allow insurance to be sold across all 50 states. 1600 companies competing sounds good. This will lower premiums, and force greater efficiency AND force down ridiculous executive salaries.
- Allow interest or membership entities to form "groups" and offer insurance. If this were the case, those groups could allow new members regardless of pre-existing conditions just as group coverage provides at large companies.
- All state mandates should be eliminated. No insurance company should HAVE TO cover hair plugs and breast augmentations (for vanity purposes.)
- Change our laws that allow all the frivolous lawsuits against doctors and hospitals. Medicine is not a sure thing. People can die while in the medical care of a doctor or hospital. Let's not make medical/healthcare a potential lottery win.
- Let's kill Medicaid! I pay for my stuff, so should others. If they are really sick, let other laws cover how to treat the indigent.
- The government should focus on cleaning up and cutting WAY back Medicare. It's going bankrupt, and is hit with over $60 billion in fraud per year. It pays out $10 billion per year in "improper" payments. It covers "scooters" and all kinks of durable goods that private insurance does not. Private insurance assumes the onus is on the patient to cover many simple things related to their healthcare.
Other things could help our financial situation. a few of my own thoughts:
- We've got to either run budget surpluses for a while OR we've got to see a massive increase of our GDP. The Federal government should make this happen. We don't need higher taxes.
- We've got to have balanced trade with our trading partners. It's good to trade with China. But, we need to run trade surpluses for a while (say, 10 years.) If we don't have balanced trade, we don't have healthy trade.
- We need a simpler tax system. I personally like the FairTax. Nothing else seems as logical or fair.
- We need energy independence. Green things are fine. I like a clean environment. But, I want us to drill for oil in the Dakotas, Alaska and as well to extract the shale based oil found out west. We should drill in the Gulf, off of Florida and anywhere we can draw on our own fuels. Further, we should expand our use of natural gas, coal and even nuclear. We have more oil, natural gas and coal than anyone else on the planet. We need to use that to support our country's wealth.
OK, well, I've just solved all our country's problems. Now I've got to figure out how I'll pay for our new roof, our kid's college costs and new carpet!
