United States World Debt

The national debt is rising at an alarming rate, and all Americans are in trouble. Although we hardly think about debt and the economy, we know that it is there. As we look back over the past decade, it is fairly easy to point out that something has definitely changed. Not only has the price of gasoline skyrocketed, but employment opportunities have drastically gone from "booming" to barely existing. Specifically, we are in jeopardy of permanently losing Social Security benefits and educational funding, while raising taxes for senior citizens, and lowering taxes for the wealthy in America. It is a fact that our current president has put our nation in a situation that has taken 42 presidents and 224 years to build. Currently our national debt is an excess of over $8.5 trillion dollars. This is the most it has ever been in history. A majority of America voted for George Bush because of promises he made to make our country better, but as you will soon learn, it was an irreprehensible mistake.

"Gasoline prices in the U.S. are at an all-time high and rising" according to Richard Leone. He continues to add that it may surprise Americans to learn that in other countries, they've essentially remained steady. Experts have a lot of good reasons to explain why prices are going up at the moment: "unrest in the Middle East, gas-guzzling cars and greed among the oil producing nations". According to Mr. Allen Saxe, a political science professor at UTA " there is another culprit that is being ignored and is making the problem far, far worse in the U.S. Between the end of February 2002 and the end of February 2004, the price of oil in dollars rose by 51%. While remedies such as encouraging more efficient use of energy are good, they won't negate the fact that a declining U.S. dollar that's worth less in the international market is an important cause of oil prices. It may seem like a stretch to blame the price of oil on mismanagement, but the rising price of oil is closely tied to the falling dollar, which, in turn, is the result of dwindling confidence in federal tax and budget policies. The dollar is falling, because of the prospect of too many U.S. Treasury bonds on the market -- and that is made necessary by the enormous deficits generated by tax cuts, increases in spending and slow economic performance. "

Furthermore, because of the unbalanced policies of the last few years, the U.S. will be pumping out trillions of dollars of new federal debt. Financial markets and oil producers are afraid that a future surplus of bonds will drive down the value of these bonds and, sooner or later, drive up U.S. interest rates. The prospects of falling prices of Treasury bonds and a weak dollar have depressed European demand for U.S. Treasury bonds, the value of the dollar depends on widespread trust that sanity will prevail in U.S. fiscal policy. The falling dollar is a silent witness to declining international confidence in U.S. policy according to expert Leone (www.tcf.org)(par 1-5). Some might ask, what's wrong with that? Having foreigners finance our consumption is a good thing. Some debt is not a bad thing in time of war and natural disaster. But the record deficits and debt built up during the Bush years are unsustainable, eroding the future for coming generations.

Meanwhile, there are two conflicting reports for the percentage of unemployment in our country. One statistic comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which clearly states that 5.2% of Americans are unemployed, while the White House says that the unemployment rate is 4.7%. So what would the naysayer say is improvement in America? Perhaps a caveman eating with a knife and fork is improvement too.

Under President Bill J. Clinton, the growth in debt subsided. Note the radical change in direction debt has taken since President George W. Bush entered office. There is no question that the most drastic rises in debt took place after Reagan was elected, and when the so-called "Conservative Republican" Presidents are in office.

The chart below shows the United Stated national debt with the various Presidents' terms marked by vertical lines. According to Steven Lammel "under Clinton the growth in debt ceased, but note the radical change in direction debt has taken since George W. Bush entered office (www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm, par 3)." It is clear where the steepest rises in debt took place.

With this objective, even throughout three wars the budget deficit was teeter-tottering under $1 trillion dollars. Clearly our economy has never experienced a debt as staggering as what we are facing during the presidency of George. W. Bush. Over the time of his presidency, the national debt has increased at an average annual rate of 8.7%; while the democratic yearly average was an increase of only 8.3%. The years while the Republicans ran the White House, the debt increased an average 9.3% per year.

As you notice in the graph above, in 1946 Democratic President Harry S. Truman increased the national debt by an average of only 3.7% per year when he was in office. The Republican Presidents stayed at an average increase of 9.3% per year. Over the last 59 years, Republican Presidents have out borrowed Democratic Presidents by almost a three to one ratio. That is, for every dollar a Democratic President has raised the national debt in the past 59 years Republican Presidents have raised the debt by $2.87. Statistics don't lie, and frankly they are astonishing!

Some of the bills passed during President Bush's' term so far that have impacted the economy negatively is the $1.7 Trillion Dollar Tax Cut for the very rich, repeal of the estate tax, $786 Billion Dollar Repeal of the Dividend Tax that will benefit the very rich and told the American people that this tax cut was affordable, and this was when the federal budget deficits were already skyrocketing to record levels, passed $524 billion dollar Medicare Prescription drug bill that gives hundreds of billions to the insurance companies and drug industries. This bill makes it illegal for seniors to buy cheaper drugs from Canada and illegal for seniors to buy Medicare gap insurance. President Bush is also trying to pass the cut in overtime pay requirements, claiming that this change is necessary to keep the economy on the right track. He feels that if workers need more money they should get a second job. In addition to the bills already passed, he wants to incorporate the Patriot Act so we can spy on US citizens without going through the courts, and so we can ignore the legal rights of people who we label as terrorist. He plans to expand the Patriot Act so that anyone who makes

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