If the US makes millions of dollars everyday, why do we have a huge debt?
350898
Bush is spending our country into bankruptcy.\n\nGovernment spending has grown nearly 29% over the last four years.\n\nThe Bush administration has spent money twice as fast Clinton. (7.6% vs. 3.4%)\n\nFighting the Al Quaeda terrorists costs money, but the fiscally responsible solution is to cut back low priority government spending.\n\nPork-barrel Republicans in Congress have increased nondefense discretionary spending at a record rate of 36%. Bush has yet to veto one pork-barrel spending bill.\n\nIn just 4 years, the Bush administration has increased nondefense discretionary spending by 1/3 more than the Clinton administration did in 8 years.\n\nThe government’s 2.4 trillion dollar budget means government is now spending more than $20,000 dollars for every family in America.\n\nOut of control spending is causing deficits and government debt to balloon, mortgaging our future and the futures of our children and grandchildren with total liabilities of nearly $40 trillion dollars.\n\nThe Bush administration claims that it will run a $500 billion deficit. .\n\nThe Bush administration continues to use phony accounting to cover up how the government raids social security to pay for pork barrel spending. The true deficit to be over $700 billion dollars per year.\n\nThe total national debt, including what is owed to social security, has reached a record breaking level of $7 trillion.\n\nIf Bush is reelected and continues to borrow and spend, it will pass $10 trillion!\n\nThat will add to the national debt-a debt we are already paying over $200 billion in interest each year.\n\nThe long run problems are worse. The unfunded liabilities in Social Security and Medicare are over $30 trillion dollars.\n\nBush’s prescription medicare benefit has put an already bankrupt program even deeper into the hole.
388511
This is a great question and quite frankly, a grave concern.  America is truly spinning out of control.  Prices cannot continue to raise the way that they do, while wages raising at less than half the rate of real estate.  \n\nMy honest opinion....taking the national debt into consideration, that we can thank Mr. Bush for making even bigger (yes, I am a republican).  Taking into account the fact that the average household has credit card debt in excess of $10,000.00 and many other issues, I think that we are in some deep, deep trouble.  I don't think that we will ever recover from this and I truly think that the downfall of America will absolutely be due to money.
856034
Never.  It's over 9 trillion dollars.  The national debt has been with us for... decades and as long as it's not a national priority (politicians tend to look at the number as a % of GNP), then it will never happen.
720906
Technically, no one. The United states isnt borrowing money from these people.\n\nWhen the govt began having deficits, they started selling treasury bonds and other countries bought them. When you purchase a treasury bond, you are actually investing in the American Dollar. \n\nOther countries and organizations are investing in the United states dollar. Not really a loan. \n\nHOWEVER< There is a good feasable solution, that WOULD work IF the American public actually wanted its govt to stay alive. BUY TREASURY BONDS!!!!!
503097
Both. It takes money out of our economy, and tries to 'reform' other countries instead of largely leaving them to their own devices, breeds passivity in those countries on solving problems and dependency. Our country's 8, going on 9 trillion in the hole, and if you do the math, you find that the damage that debt can do is only going to accelerate. Even if the interest on 9 trillion drops from 4% to 1%, 1% of a trillion dollars is still a truckload of money. Several truckloads, actually. As Congress stupidly signs anything put in front of em(old folks will sign ANYTHING), and the debt spins up to 13, 14, 20 trillion dollars in unpayable red ink, you're going to see the beginning of The End for this country. The shift is already on to invest in euros instead of dollars. The european countries have the debt stuff WRITTEN INTO THEIR CONSTITUTION. Maybe it's time for america to have such and amendment. Hey, Congress, sign this! LOLOL
228212
If the deficit was $319 billion, then our national debt increased by $319 billion.\n\nA deficit is our debt for that particular year. The deficit is then added to the total debt.
74240
I believe whoever told you that is confusing Japan and China. The total US debt held by foreign countries is $1.886 trillion, of which Japan held $1.2 trillion as of March 2005 and China a mere $223.5 billion at the same time.
434243
When a government prints more money and puts it into the system, it causes HYPO inflation, and then instead of needing 3 dollars for a gallon of gas, you will need 30,000 dollars.  It causes way too much problem.  You do not want that to happen, no jobs, not work and not trillion of dollars to buy it with.  \n\nNo other country would trade with such a country and eventually that country would fall into depression and total collapse.
862898
The debt and deficit have no peer in the problem of economic waste. There is a contant danger of increasing interest rates ballooning the payments and every dollar is a loan from other countries who could stop lending us money and squeeze our economy. The Chinese are very aware of our deficit problem, and no one wants to address the problem. They own 40 percent of our debt and they are flooding our markets with Walmart goods. They are also attempting to capture the oil markets we depend on, this is a tragedy waiting to happen. We are not supporting our education system to compete with other countries who are producing a superior work force. The engineering crisis is untenable, India is producing most of our engineers and taking American jobs. You can not compete in the global economy without a superior educational system. Economic collapse is what killed the Soviet Union and we are following their example.
644480
You are confused.\n\nThe United States of America does not have any money.\n\nThey have a debt of $8,352,018,680,781.45 and it keeps increasing about $2 Billion PER DAY.\n\nYour share is about $27,966.97\n\nUnfortunately even if you send them a check to the world-famous Department G your share would still keep increasing unless the Goverment stops asking for money to the rest of the World, which is impossible right now because they spend more than the money coming from taxes.\n\nATTN  DEPT  G\nBUREAU  OF  THE  PUBLIC  DEBT\nP O  BOX  2188\nPARKERSBURG,  WV   26106-2188
356771
Currently the US is borrowing from China and Japan.  Saudi Arabia has a fair share as well.  But I think most of the debt is privately held in bonds.\n\nIf you want to dig up a complete list, you might try to look at the federal reserve's website.\n\nhttp://www.federalreserve.gov/\n\nI cant guarantee you will find anything, but there is a very large amount of information there that most people choose to ignore.
763808
Foreign National Debt is above 3 trillion at record levels so I say no. Current US fiscal policy is designed to move wealth to the upper class from the middle class. The government does not seem to want to protect the majority of its people but thats what we deserve for voting in these leaders.
945525
When  you include everything, all our debt, the number is over 50 trillion.  " A billion here and a billion there, soon you are talking about real money."  It is all a colossal shell game perpetrated on the public.  Social Security was supposed to be a fund that contributions went in to, and benefits were to be taken from the interest.  If left alone, there would be more than enough money now to draw from.  Instead, Congress adopted another criminal  practice and started, in the sixties, dumping that money in the general fund to be spent every year on their pet projects, like Vietnam.  Today is  the same with Iraq.  I imagine they call it creative bookkeeping 101.
1007014
Nobody knows how long the large US trade deficits can be sustained.  But most economists say that these deficits cannot continue forever.  And the more these deficits accumulate, the more likely it becomes that investors will panic and sell off the US dollar.   \n\nOr the countries that are accumulating the US dollars now may want to spend them in the US some time in the future.  And such spending will cause inflation of prices.\n\nOr countries that are accumulating US dollars now may continue to hold them in US government bonds which pay interest.  And eventually these interest payments will become so large that much of US tax dollars will end up going to foreign countries instead of being used for the benefit of US citizens.\n\nNone of these scenarios are good.   But there is no easy way to cut back on these trade deficits.  People in the US are used to live beyong their means.  And such a habit is very difficult to break.  People will change their spending habits only when economic circumstances force them to.
44712
It seems to me that almost everything that the US uses is made in another country. This in turns makes up dependent upon foreign countries for things we could make in the US. The funny thing about this is the US people would not work for the same wages that the foreign people are paid to do such taxing , monotonous work. Have you ever heard anyone request subpar conditions and $0.15 a day in the US??? I doubt it.....
481618
There is the debt the national government owes. Then there is the debt the population and corporations owe. Then there is the debt that states and localities owe. Which did you mean, or did you mean all?\n\nU S government $8+ trillion.  Does not include unfunded obligations such as social security and medicare. \n\nConsumer debt is over $10 trillion.\n\nCorporate debt is probably around another $10 trillion. GM alone owes 285 billion and that does not include unfunded pension and health care liabilities.\n\nStates and local governments probably $30 billion. Every town, school district, airport, library, college owes millions. \n\nHope I didn't ruin your week.
455522
oh, only one trillion!  that's great!\n\nthere are also capital gains taxes, corporation taxes, tariffs on internationally-traded goods, federal sales taxes (sales tax usually limited to states), and a variety of user fees, license fees, administrative fees, and so forth.\n\nI saw one person say we could print more money... that's one of those "gosh, how come no one's thought of that?" type deals.  A good course in macroeconomics would tell you why that can't happen, but basically it's supply and demand.  If you flooded the money market with dollars, the value of the dollar would plummet just like the Mark did in post-WWI Germany when they tried that trick.  Money is just a representation of a country's ability to produce goods and services, and each dollar is a fraction of our economic capacity.  More paper just means each piece of paper is a smaller fraction of the whole thing, so it's like trying to make more pie by slicing the same pie into more pieces.  Doesn't work- it just makes a mess of the pie you've got.\n\nI mean, if you really wanted to get down and dirty, the fed has few limitations on what it can collect taxes on.  But the thing is, where would that trillion be cut from?  Everyone has a few programs they don't care for... some think the military should be smaller, some think regulatory agencies like ADA or HUD could be done away with... but the consequences of slashing a program often outweigh the benefits of tax relief.  Like if you slashed HUD funding, you'd have rampant homelessness, which means higher crime rates, which means more expense in law enforcement and the economic impact of property value depreciation wherever the homeless congregate.  And slashing defense could really lead to some terrible things, because military power balance is just as vital as economic power balance in this world.\n\nPeople at the local level love talking about eliminating property tax, which is their big money-maker, but the bottom line is that the money's gotta come from somewhere, and budget cuts tend not to be the answer.  I worked for a town manager in a town where the people elected a council that slashed taxes, and everyone was screaming to have their programs back.  None of those legislators that cut the taxes were re-elected, because you don't realize how important governemnt programs are until they're gone and you're left with all these solutionless problems.  Believe me, as an insider, that all public programs are in some form or another a response to a real and present problem that people decided was worth investing public money into to solve.  Eliminate the program, and the problem comes back full-force.  And the Reagan concept that if you shrink government, the problems will solve themselves as the would-be tax dollars are redistributed in the free market.  It doesn't work that way because the free market is extremely short-sighted and self-centered.  Government has its flaws, but its stated purpose is to keep society running smoothly, and there has yet to be a workable alternative.