Will wonders never cease! The sun, moon and planets must have been in perfect synchronization to allow an historic event to occur here on earth. Two earthly entities who have never agreed on anything, with very little fanfare agreed on a resolution to avoid an impending crisis; a bi-partisan decision no less.
Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Trump met and agreed to raise the national debt limit, allowing our government to continue spending at a rate far above our means to repay. A contributing factor to the ballooning deficit is the $1.5 trillion tax cut bill signed by Trump in 2017. Trump shouldn’t feel too bad about the deficit increase; it also ballooned after George W. Bush’s tax cut. Obamas’ stewardship of the economy wasn’t much better. He borrowed trillions, gave hundreds of billions to prop-up the banks and the bankers took the first billion and gave themselves bonuses for a job well done.
Trump, while campaigning before his election, said that he knows how to solve America’s debt problem. “When you have $18-$19 trillion in debt, they need someone like me to straighten it out.”
The Congressional Budget Office is projecting a deficit of $22.7 trillion at the 2019 fiscal year ending Sept. 30. That’s about $180,000 per tax payer.
The World Bank judges a country’s financial health based on their total debt-to-gross domestic product ratio. It considers a country to be in trouble if that ratio is greater than 77 percent. On February 11, 2019, the U.S. debt exceeded $22 trillion. That puts the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio at 108 percent. Next year the interest on the national debt will reach a trillion dollars annually.
Our economic analysts—the ones that predicted the 2008 recession—say we’re on a slippery slope and time is running out. In the interest of open-mindedness, let me mention the economic analysts who insisted in 2007 that recession was not imminent, are now working in Washington, and they again are confident there is no recession in the offing. Are you feeling great again, yet?
I have not heard any mention of the national debt in Trump’s or any of the Democratic presidential candidates’ campaign speeches to date. Some of them are promising more entitlements, but no mention how they will be funded. If elected, Elizabeth Warren wants to pay off all student loans, about $1 trillion. Some of those college kids majored in partying and drinking, then they graduated and were not able to find a job in their field of expertise. They are responsible for their situation not the tax payers.
Are we as a nation losing our sense of responsibility? If you pay a trillion a year in interest and borrow a trillion and a half a year are we financially under water?
—Tom Janicki
Almont
