This is how bad it is:
On the first day of fiscal year 2013, the federal government added more debt than was accumulated between the nation’s founding and sometime in October 1942, about ten months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, a span of about 166 years.
CNS News notedthe $93,245,605,914.16 added to the debt on Monday “equaled about $816 for every American household.” And “since median household earns about $138.36 per day over a 365-day year,” the median household would need to give up all of the money it earns for nearly six days to pay off its share of the debt accumulated on the first day of fiscal year 2013.
The economy has been so bad for so long that it has pushed the national debt down on the list of voter concerns, but it's still there, still growing, still a menace. It wasn't exactly reassuring that in the debate last night, Mitt Romney went out of his way to insist that he will spend $716 billion more on Medicare than President Obama would.
Comments
In 1940, the population was 132 nillion, up from the 78 million in 1900, and the 2 million residents in the 1780s. Don't you suppose it takes more resources to meet the needs of 330 million than the 40 million or so averaged during the first 160 years of this country's existance?
In 1795, a carpenter would earn 58c for a 14-hour day. Today, the mean wages for a carpenter would be $660 for that same 14-hour day - and benefits such as sick days, paid vacations, insurance, etc.
With a population that's 8 times as large, and prices that are 1142 times as great, government should cost
When the vakue of a dollar was 1142 tunes as large, and the population 8.25 times as large, the cost of government should be 12,000 times as expensive. You're comparing a span of years 16 times as great, though, so it should only cost 750 times as much for the last decade as for the first 16 decades.
Eisenhowev dealt with a national debt that was even larger than today's as a percentage of the gross national product. He dealt with it by doing a massive revamp of the federal income tax, and before long, our economy was humming and the national debt was shrinking. Good conservatives embrace the tried and true, instead of the voodoo economics that led to an massive explosion of the national debt. We need to return to the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.