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<blockquote data-quote="dru" data-source="post: 1934717" data-attributes="member: 3047"><p>Not to nit-pick but you're missing a few things. First, the national debt is at 16 trillion, not 10 trillion. That has the effect of changing your $4000, to $6400. Secondly, only about half of the US population is actually in the labor force (employed and/or looking for work) so the denominator is really 160,000,000 - not 251,000,000</p><p></p><p>These changes take the annual payments from $4000 per year for ten years to $10,800 or a total cost of 108,000 -- For a two income household, they would be paying twice that, or nearly 22,000 a year for the next 10 years which I don't see as a very realistic option for most people. So there are a few options (short of defaulting): </p><p>1.) increase the denominator from 150,000,000 to something a LOT bigger. I am a big big fan of roping in retirees to pay for this (mostly because they are responsible for much of the debt to begin with) and that could probably get us to around 200,000,000 or so (average annual payment now down to 8100 per year) </p><p>2.) Increase the payback period from 10 to 20, 25, or 30 years. A 20 year note for a long-term obligation is something that is relatively common and certainly a national debt, even one that is considered "normal and healthy" would be considered a long-term obligation. This would further reduce the payment to 4,050 or 3,240 or 2,700 per year, respectively (though with a correspondingly longer repayment period)</p><p></p><p>There might be something to be said for a shorter repayment period as that would give politicians a shorter window of time with which to fuuck with all this and derail it to score political points.</p><p></p><p></p><p>But this just takes care of current liabilities and does nothing for future concerns. Currently the government spends so much money on transfer programs like medicare, social security, and medicaid, (so-called mandatory spending), that were the government to completely shut down ALL of its discretionary spending (military, roads, post office, DHS, DEA, DOE, Dept of Education etc.), and apply all tax revenue to these programs they would just barely (maybe) cover mandatory spending. But note that mandatory spending is increasing at a much faster rate than net tax receipts. So without significant, and very painful changes in our nation's social policy (read here: possible elimination) we will find ourselves right back where we were in short order. What this also means is that our government's spending exceeds our income by about 45% (i.e. for every $1.00 you earn, you spend $1.45) I frankly don't see how taxes can be raised to deal with this problem without causing some catastrophic problems. The "rich" simply don't have enough money to pay down all of this. One way or another, this will be paid for off the backs of everyday ordinary people, and (hopefully) those who depend on the system to care for them. Either taxes will go up across the board, or services will have to be cut. Either way, pain is coming not just for the moochers but for the productive citizens who have heretofore carried this insane patchworked claptrap of social programs</p><p></p><p>So yeah, that's my cheerful analysis for the day <img src="/images/smilies/smile.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>ETA sources:</p><p><a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33074.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33074.pdf</a></p><p><a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2012-BUD" target="_blank">http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2012-BUD</a></p><p><a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2013-BUD" target="_blank">http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2013-BUD</a></p><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="dru, post: 1934717, member: 3047"] Not to nit-pick but you're missing a few things. First, the national debt is at 16 trillion, not 10 trillion. That has the effect of changing your $4000, to $6400. Secondly, only about half of the US population is actually in the labor force (employed and/or looking for work) so the denominator is really 160,000,000 - not 251,000,000 These changes take the annual payments from $4000 per year for ten years to $10,800 or a total cost of 108,000 -- For a two income household, they would be paying twice that, or nearly 22,000 a year for the next 10 years which I don't see as a very realistic option for most people. So there are a few options (short of defaulting): 1.) increase the denominator from 150,000,000 to something a LOT bigger. I am a big big fan of roping in retirees to pay for this (mostly because they are responsible for much of the debt to begin with) and that could probably get us to around 200,000,000 or so (average annual payment now down to 8100 per year) 2.) Increase the payback period from 10 to 20, 25, or 30 years. A 20 year note for a long-term obligation is something that is relatively common and certainly a national debt, even one that is considered "normal and healthy" would be considered a long-term obligation. This would further reduce the payment to 4,050 or 3,240 or 2,700 per year, respectively (though with a correspondingly longer repayment period) There might be something to be said for a shorter repayment period as that would give politicians a shorter window of time with which to fuuck with all this and derail it to score political points. But this just takes care of current liabilities and does nothing for future concerns. Currently the government spends so much money on transfer programs like medicare, social security, and medicaid, (so-called mandatory spending), that were the government to completely shut down ALL of its discretionary spending (military, roads, post office, DHS, DEA, DOE, Dept of Education etc.), and apply all tax revenue to these programs they would just barely (maybe) cover mandatory spending. But note that mandatory spending is increasing at a much faster rate than net tax receipts. So without significant, and very painful changes in our nation's social policy (read here: possible elimination) we will find ourselves right back where we were in short order. What this also means is that our government's spending exceeds our income by about 45% (i.e. for every $1.00 you earn, you spend $1.45) I frankly don't see how taxes can be raised to deal with this problem without causing some catastrophic problems. The "rich" simply don't have enough money to pay down all of this. One way or another, this will be paid for off the backs of everyday ordinary people, and (hopefully) those who depend on the system to care for them. Either taxes will go up across the board, or services will have to be cut. Either way, pain is coming not just for the moochers but for the productive citizens who have heretofore carried this insane patchworked claptrap of social programs So yeah, that's my cheerful analysis for the day :) ETA sources: [url]http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33074.pdf[/url] [url]http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2012-BUD[/url] [url]http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2013-BUD[/url] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget[/url] [/QUOTE]
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