Putting a face on what we owe

Putting a face on what we owe

In response to a discussion about the current debt crisis, a liberal friend from Orlando asked, “Why does the GOP hate Obama? He gives them everything they ask.”

I can only speak for myself, but I’ve said this since I read Obama’s position statement, “A Blueprint for America” in the summer of 2008. He wants to be a Robin Hood on steroids. And that applies to the recent debt limit debate.

The agreement for a balanced budget is a sham. The cuts necessary to reduce the deficit will never materialize. And neither will the necessary tax code changes. They (Congressional leaders and the President) have simply postponed what is necessary, in order to save their political futures. As an aside, if they did not want to have lobbyists influencing elections, all they have to do is eliminate all the loopholes that lobbyists live on.

I agree with one of the “Tea Party” freshman, who in response to the Democratic mantra that Congress has always passed debt ceiling increases without objection, said that, maybe if Congress had objected before, we would not be in the mess that we are in today.

So now we will owe $17 trillion. With interest at 4 percent which we will soon be paying, our annual interest cost will be $680 billion. But that is only a number which we really do not understand. However, if we have 30 million poor people in America, we could put $22,267 into each poor person’s pocket with that $680 billion. Each year. Just for interest costs. That is insane. What happens when the interest rate reaches 5 percent or 6 percent (over 1 trillion in interest cost)? What would our economy look like if we as a nation could spend $1 trillion on goods rather than interest — much of which leaves the U.S.?

What rational person says we need to increase our deficit by $2.4 trillion in 18 months? Our president and congressional leaders do. If we have about 310 million people in the US, that means each and every baby, every student, every worker, every welfare recipient, every Social Security recipient, every waiter, every stay- at-home mom, will have to fork over $7,742 just to pay for the $2.4 trillion deficit we will incur in the next 18 months.

None of the politicians or talking heads break it down into numbers we can understand. That could be because they don’t understand, either.

John Webel, New Middletown