Racking Up The Debt

I don't know if you noticed the story last week about the National Debt Clock in New York City - it ran out of digits to record the growing figure. When our national debt reached $10,000,000,000,000 the clock ran out of display room. But not to worry, as a short-term fix, the digital dollar sign on the billboard-style clock near Times Square has been switched to a figure — the "1" in $10 trillion.

The Durst Organization says it plans to update the sign next year by adding two digits. That will make it capable of tracking debt up to a quadrillion dollars. Now that makes me feel better already. You can check out the "real-time national debt" by looking at the national debt widget on the right side of my blog.

The late Manhattan real estate developer Seymour Durst put the sign up in 1989 to call attention to what was then a $2.7 trillion debt.

Here are some statistics about our national debt:

For 31 out of the last 35 years, the U.S.government has spent more on programs than it has collected in taxes. This year, the red ink could be close to half a trillion dollars.

Right now, we spend more money each year on interest on that debt than we spend on the war in Iraq.

If we do nothing, the country’s debt will be growing faster than our economy in about 15 years, which means we won’t be able to keep up. By 2040, the country would need nearly every dollar it collects in taxes just to cover the costs of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the debt.

Americans love to spend. I have written in an earlier blog post that in 2005, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans spent more than they earned. This is a frightening statistic. Our problem isn't with the markets, federal oversight or wall street. We have seen the problem and the problem is us! The richest country in the world is leveraged deep in debt. And we are just now beginning to see the consequences of our actions.