None of this is a joke. What I like about numbers is that they help us live in reality instead of in fantasy land.
US Debt Increases in 2011 Month by Month:
treasurydirect.gov
Starting = $14.025 Trillion
Jan Increase = $106 Billion
Feb Increase = $64 Billion
Mar Increase = $75 Billion
Apr Increase = $18 Billion
May Increase = $57 Billion
Jun Increase = ($2) Billion (remember the shutdown threatened and partisan acrimony?)
Jul Increase = ($1) Billion (remember the shutdown threatened and partisan acrimony?)
Aug Increase = $342 Billion (partisan bickering postponed to Thanksgiving and backlogged bills paid)
Sept Increase = $106 Billion
Oct Increase = $203 Billion
Ending = $14.994 Trillion
In 10 months we've increased the debt by $969 Billion. Close to $3,000 for every man, woman, and child. Wow!
Folks, we must acknowledge that 1) our government is BLOATED. 2) This is not sustainable. We can debate what the fixes will be, but we cannot fail to acknowledge that we are spending way too much money and not collecting enough in tax revenues. We're going to have to address both sides of the equation in order to get our fiscal house in order.
So how do we define what is sustainable? I would prefer we balance our budget, but I understand that we don't have any true fiscal conservatives left in this country, besides me. Therefore, I'll propose the next best thing. Let's keep debt growth in line with a reasonable long term forecast for GDP growth or 2%. That means, if GDP is running at $15 trillion right now, then we can incur about $300B in deficits and new debt every year.
Right now, we're running $1.5 Trillion in deficits and new debt every year. So the math tells us that we're running about $1.2 Trillion per year in excess of what is sustainable ($1.5 Trillion minus $300B). So to fix this problem, we need to cut deficits by $12 Trillion over the next 10 years ($1.2 Trillion times 10).
Summary:
* Fix the economy by CUTTING spending and RAISING revenues to the tune of $12 Trillion over 10 years, gets us sustainability
* Right now, the Debt Super Committee is targeting cuts to the deficit of $1.2 Trillion over 10 years. Please notice the decimal point.
* The Debt Super Committee is smoking crack. They aren't even in the ballpark. THey are targeting cuts that are 1/10th of what they need to be to get us back on a sustainable fiscal path. |
