National Debt at Record $9 Trillion

[ssiguy]

Remember debts in Canada are paid in C$ NOT US$.
Our current federal debt is 28% of GDP and total federal and provincial debt is now about 46% of GDP.
Remember that US figure of 9.2 $trillion does not include the current state debts totally 2.2$ trillion.
That is a high rate by any measure but it's made worse by several factors. First, these debts are rising faster now than ever. Second, yours does not include your massive medicare bills that are unfunded unlike Canada and most of the Western world. By 2014 your medicare bill will be 16% of GDP compared to Canada's 9% which in of itself is high by Western standards.
Third, you are only now taking your debt seriously but due to waiting your baby-boomers are going into retirement as opposed to in the 90s when they were at their prime working/income age.

Interset payments on your debt are rising fast and backed up by the fact that your federal government refuses to cut your military budget, which is already as large as the the next 5 largest in the world, you have very little room to manouver.

Bush has done your nation {and the world} in a predicament and if neither Obama nor McCain decide to treduce military spending then your debt will continue to climb at unsustainable levels.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Remember debts in Canada are paid in C$ NOT US$.
Our current federal debt is 28% of GDP and total federal and provincial debt is now about 46% of GDP.

You aren't including Crown Corporation debt. Hydro Quebec is $35B in the hole, which is larger than the debts of all but two of the provinces. The remanant of the former Ontario Hydro (Ontario Electricity Financial Corp)carriers $38B in debt.

[ssiguy]

True, but they are NOT taxpayer supported debts.

The states situation will get much worse unless the feds decide to really tackle the job of government debt.
That means NO tax cuts..........you can't give what you don't have. There is of course the ability to make the system faier like making the wealthy pay much more but return those tax increases to tax returns for the middle/working class.
No new spending...........nothing else needs to be said.
Stop all corporaten welfare including farm subsidies. With the price of commodities these days the last thing farmers need is a subsidy.
Finally and probably most importantly........take a knife to the military/defence budget. So much of your non-decetionary budget goes straight to the military which gives almost no room to manouver. That is especially true now as your boomers start to retire and your medical/social security bills start to expload. You have decided to take your action on your economic problems at a very bad time but it still has to be done regardless.
Until the US government starts viewing military/defence spending as something TRULY decetionary then your debt and thus debt interest payments will continue to soar.