Where is the government spending the money. In 2008 Bush had a deficit of about $460 billion. We were fighting two wars and trying to get the economy back on track. October 3 2008 Bush signed TARP which cost about $450 billion and Obama signed the stimulus bill that same fiscal year with a price tag of $700 billion. Those two bills make sense as far as why our deficit was so high in fiscal 2009, but no new huge spending bills have been passed since. So where the hell is our money being wasted. Listening to Obama he brought one war to a close and is drawing down the other. I have also seen where the DoD has taken a $1 billion cut. So if DoD is spending a lot less where the hell is the rest of the money going? Why are we not cutting those programs? Those are the programs that are spending us into oblivion.

 

According to www.usdebtclock.org the three big ticket items are medicare/medicaid, social security and defense.

Ballpark figures show that those three combined cost about 100% of the revenue the federal government receives. The other $1.4 Trillion or so the government spends on everything else gets borrowed.

And the current $16+ Trillion debt is a drop in the bucket compared to the unfunded entitlements for medicare and social security. Afterall, the baby boomers are just getting to retirement age. You will see the debt and deficits skyrocket then.

Without significant medicare and social security reform and less spending, the economy will collapse. There is not enough wealth in the nation to fund our current path.

Honestly, it's probably already too late, even if Washington had an appetite to make the necessary changes. Unfunded entitlments are already over $1 million per tax payer and growing faster than we can create new taxpaers. If you are above average income, your share is far higher. Not going to happen.

 

Here is a page to look at that gives some detail.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/...12012n#usgs302

Note that by 2017 the interest payment is $565 billion compared to 2012s $225 billion.

Defense is about 24% and includes money for vets and foreign aid, both defense aid and economic aid to the tune of $56 billion.

 

Also remember we spend about 250 billion per year just to pay the interest on the national debt. That also is skyrocketing every year, especially now that Obama has more than doubled W's spending.

Notice that Obama only pays lip service to real entitlement reform. Without it, you can forget about EVER having a balanced budget and paying down our debt.

See those riots in Greece and Italy? That's the US in the future. How long from now is anyone's guess.

 

Wait until we can't keep interest rates down any longer. The interest payments will go way up.

I believe we are currently 'printing' about $85 billion per month to stimulate the economy. And you wonder why it costs $8 for 10 ounces of shredded cheese at Von's.

Good thing we don't include food and energy costs when calculating CPI. It we did, it would be hard for the government to hide the inflation that is already happening.

 

The same cheese that costs $5 at Walmart..........

Von's prices are out of line.

 

Agreed 100%.

The point is the amount of time I have to work to buy 10 ounces of shredded cheese is going up, no matter where I shop.

IMO, one of the only ways we can avoid default and economic collapse is to pay back creditors with inflated dollars. Unfortunately, the downside of the inflation will be reduced standard of living for Americans.

Compared to Greece, we do have a culture with a strong work ethic and we do have natural resources. But as far as government overspending, we are on par.

 

Judge Judy throws down on freeloader... This is where it's going.

 

But everything will be fine if we just tax the rich a little more. Thats the solution to all of our problems, right?

 

It's free with an EBT card and you can bet the person using it will be talking on their obummer phone...

 

And if taxing them a little more does not work, we can tax them ALOT more! Those evil small businessmen deserve the shaft.

Then let's tax capital gains at the same rate as income. Sure it will reduce investment and cost us countless jobs, but at least the evil rich will get soaked.

And if that's not enough, let's impose a death tax of 50% on all your wealth.

Then let's means test social security and medicare, so the people who put in the most get the least.

The scary thing is, even if we do all those things, it STILL won't be enough to balance the budget and pay down the debt!

But at least we can have class warfare. Thanks, DC!

 

Good link.

Your figures on 'interest' are the interest payments, less the amount of interest income the government receives from a wide range of sources.

If you open the + signs, the link shows actual interest on the debt is projected at $809.1 billion by 2017.

We currently have 114.7 million people that pay federal income tax. Assuming we still have that many taxpayers by 2017 (crosses fingers), each taxpayer's share of the INTEREST on the debt will be $7,053 per year.

Assuming we only have $20 Trillion in debt by 2017 (it will be more) and 114.7 million taxpayers, each will have a share of $174,368 that the government has already spent. And the unfunded entitlements will be maybe 8 times that much.

That's an equal division by taxpayer, and is federal debt and entitlements, only. If you make more than the average taxpayer and your state is in bad shape, your share will be much much more.

Gonna be hard to pay that principal down, when the interest and all the other (rising) expenses are eating us up.

And we have not even factored in the full impact of Obamacare on the economy.

Sorry folks, it just does not pencil. We are not going to make it, without major spending reductions and entitlement reform. Otherwise, we are going to have to go BK at some point, and plead for terms with our creditors. The government simply can't tax us and our future generations enough or confiscate enough to get us out of the hole, but they will try.

 

Well stated Dave.

We spend approximately 750 billion/year on welfare and other entitlement programs. Add to it just the interest on the national debt, and it's almost a trillion dollars (and going up every day).

Scary figures right there.

 

We had a good run.

It's the future generations I worry about. They are already enslaved to insurmountable debt.

When the real pain starts, the government will ask for more power and control over the economy, to 'fix it'. Then the loss of freedoms and the damage to our economy will really speed up, and the end of the USA as we know it will have arrived.

Never thought I'd live to see the death of this nation, and I sure wanted better for my kids. Pisses me off, but what you gonna do?

 

Actually the entitlements are $2 trillion of the $3.8 trillion budget.

$820 billion for Social Security
$850 billion on Medicare/Medicaid
$450 billion on welfare

And the Medicare/Medicaid part is expected to get far worse although I think the are being VERY optimistic the numbers they put out for that and welfare.