Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Paying Down the US Debt

I don’t use this blog to make political statements, but being a researcher at heart and using data every day, I couldn’t resist sharing a few data points from a short video a friend of mine sent me. The video was produced by an organization called Government Gone Wild and the title is, “Brother, Can You Spare a Trillion?” (As a registered Independent, I don’t subscribe to this or any political organization, but watch it here if you are interested http://governmentgonewild.org/brothercanyouspareatrillion ).
I’ve learned through my research efforts that specific numbers make much more of an impact on the psyche than generalities. So, per the video, did you know?
·         The United States spent $413 billion in interest payments last year
·         Since 1988 the total spent in interest payments has been $8 trillion. That’s a bigger number than many of us can comprehend. Just to put it in some context, it would be enough to buy every citizen in the US a Lotus Evora (luxury sports) car.
·         The Congressional Budget Office predicts by 2021 (just 10 years away), interest payments will be $1.1 trillion a year, which is more than one and a half times what we spend on defence.
·         If our Congress stopped ALL spending today and starting paying down the debt at a rate of $100 million per day, it would take 389 years to pay it off.
No, there is no easy answer.

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