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U.S.A Debt

Soviet_Guy

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Okay, The roots of economic collapse for the United States have been sown. After claiming vicoty in the Cold War, the trillions in debt cause first by Roosevolts Welfare plan in the 1930's, and by Lindon B Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Bush Senior and Junior as well, are amounting to an eventual collapse of the Democratic Nation Of The United States Of America:

In 1790, when Alexander Hamilton, as secretary of the treasury, made his first report on the national debt of the United States, he estimated it at close to $70 million. After alternately rising and falling, the debt stood at only $4 million, or 21 cents per capita, in 1840. That was the lowest point ever reached by the public debt of the U.S. After 1840 it rose to a peak, in the last year of the Civil War, of almost $2.68 billion and a per capita figure of $75.01. The debt subsequently fell and fluctuated around $1.15 billion for a number of years, until it began to rise again during World War I. In 1919 the national public debt amounted to almost $25.5 billion. Throughout the prosperous years of the 1920s, the public debt declined. During the depression of 1929 and in the 1930s, the national debt rose again, particularly because of the deficit spending during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in support of the newly enacted welfare programs. During World War II the debt rose to $260.12 billion.

The national debt declined for a few years after the end of the war, but then began to increase again as the federal government undertook extensive domestic programs and foreign aid commitments and financed the Korean and Vietnam wars. In the early 1980s, increased government spending and tax cuts helped push the national debt to $1 trillion. In 2000 it stood at $5.7 trillion.

further reading
These sources provide additional information on Debt, National.

The U.S. debt is divided into two major kinds of loans, marketable and nonmarketable. Marketable loans are made up of bills, notes, and bonds that can be traded. Nonmarketable loans include U.S. savings bonds, foreign-government-owned securities, and government account securities that are redeemable but not tradable. Maturity of U.S. debt ranges from less than a year to over 20 years, with the average maturity about 3 years. More than half of the debt, however, is short term, maturing in less than a year. A ceiling is placed on U.S. federal debt, and Congress must enact new legislation to raise the ceiling. In 1997 the debt ceiling was set at $5.95 trillion.

Microsoft ® Encarta ® Encyclopedia 2005 © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
 
I'm new here, and I'm just curious. Why would a guy from Toronto call himself Soviet Guy? Is it just a joke, or are you a commie?

Anyway, about the National Debt. Unfortunately because of too much spending, and irresponsible tax cuts, the Bush administration has turned budget surpluses into record budget deficits in a matter of a couple of years. This leaves the government with little maneuvering room to create economic stimulus in the future, or to invest in infrastructure, or education, so that our economy will not be as productive. Because of the new debt added to what we are currently paying, we will be forced to raise taxes in the future and decrease spending to finance our interest payments. In addition, we are now more dependable on foreign government's investment, such as East Asian central banks. A much better plan would have been to follow in the footsteps of Clinton, and continue to pay down our existing debt. That gave us more economic freedom, and lowered long term interest rates, which spurred investment and growth.

The best we can hope for now is because of all this deficit spending, our economy will continue to grow, and eventually outgrow the deficits. Last year was an example of this, as tax revenue actually went up, despite further consolidation of previous tax cuts, because of the economic growth they created. We may have a lot of debt, but our financial situation is a lot better than Europe's anemic growth, or Russia's unstable economy for that matter.
 
I hope by "East Asian Central Banks" you mean China because that is who has purchased our newest debt recently. And that's a good thing.
 
There are many different kinds of debts. National debt that is about 7.6 trillions now is only a part of them.
Contemporary data on debts and GDP are here: www.kwaves.com
 
we're gonna be facing some serious economic downfall in the next couple of decades.
 
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