America's $53 trillion jumbo loan

[DogPoundPup]

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

The next president and Congress must not let the national debt surprise the country the way the subprime crisis did.

Americans are now tasting the sour fruits of unaffordable mortgages: foreclosure, bankruptcy, falling markets. The nation, too, is staring at overwhelming debt, made worse by this week's forecast of a whopper federal deficit. Washington mustn't let this burden rise, for the sake of global financial markets and future US generations.

It's true that the $482 billion deficit chasm estimated for fiscal year 2009 doesn't look so deep when taken as a percentage of the overall economy – 3.3 percent of gross domestic product compared to the 1983 nadir of about 6 percent.

But this is just one "mortgage" that the federal government (i.e., taxpayers) must meet. It owes on all the deficits it has accumulated over the years (the national debt), and it has jumbo liabilities to come in the form of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Adding all those liabilities together, the government has dug itself into a $53 trillion fiscal hole – the equivalent of $175,000 per person living in the United States. If the White House and Congress continue to follow the do-nothing plan, in another 30 years or so the federal government will spend more than twice as much as it raises in taxes.

Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0801/p08s01-comv.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. Wow - that's close to the worst misnomer EVER.

[indepat]

2. Bet last nickel that this ticking time-bomb is not going to wait another 30 years to explode

all over the landscape. :P

[NBachers]

3. Okay- this is the "Ticking Time Bomb" scenerio

that lets Super Agent Jack Bauer torture anyone to save America's ass.

So, uh, who do we start with?

[SnoopDog]

4. Is there a bigger word than 'jumbo'?

Unless America starts making something to sell... buy buy America (to less than a 3rd world country)....

[Earth_First]

5. Ginormous? n/t

[DogPoundPup]

6. Humongous? But point taken of 3rd world USA n/t

[Trajan]

7. Remember the 'lock box' ?

Good thing the GOP won government .... I shudder to think we might have had a solvent SSI program ....

Hopefully; Everyone has saved enough to not starve to death in open fields when they grow too old to work, or the work disappears ....

Yeah ... right ....

[creeksneakers2]

8. wingnut accounting

Future SS, medicare and medicaid are counted as unfunded liabilities? What about the military? What about the rest of government operations? We don't have the money for any of them. The money is in the future earnings of Americans.

The wingnut accounting separates out SS,medicare and medicaid because they want those programs cut. Let's talk about the trillions in unfunded future military expenditures. For SS, the current generation payed in extra to put money in the bank for later. There's nothing like that to fund the military. Lets cut the military first.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Hear, hear! You are so right! We need a 90% cut in the military budget, down to

a true defensive posture (no more wars of choice)! Think of all that liberated money!

I heard the fucking 'Blue Dog' Democrats, whom Diebold & brethren swept into office in 2006, on the radio days after that (s)election, and they were all saying 'cut, cut, cut the deficit, cuts here, there and everywhere, and this went on for about 20 minutes, until the interviewer said, what about the military budget? And they all cheeped in, "No, no, we must support our troops!" I could've told you then that this so-called Democratic Congress would end up with an 8% approval rating--worse than Bush's.

The military budget is NON-PRODUCTIVE spending. All we got out of it was GAS-GOUGING and unfrackingbelievable profits for Exxon Mobile--as well as over 4,000 dead soldiers and some one million dead Iraqis whose families will never forgive us. We could have a completely adequate defense for 90% less. We could be prospering now, with everybody loving us. We could have had full employment selling "green" products. We could have converted to alternative energy by now. We could have had universal health care. It is just appalling to think of the sheer DAMAGE these Bushite and 'Blue Dog' fuckwads have done. It's as if they set out to DESTROY the U.S.A.

[Amonester]

12. Yeah, but... but... but... they pile up so much for themselves 'n...

/or for close relatives... ya no!

the "poor" things... where/how would they "earn" as much elsewhere?

[OneBlueSky]

9. a trilion here, a trillion there . . . pretty soon you're talkin' serious money . . . n/t

.

[Imagevision]

11. Drill for offshore oil, we can always sell it to China...