You’ve heard the recent news that our national debt just topped $16 trillion. It’s a major issue today, and it has major repercussions for our future.
How much is $16 trillion? To put it in perspective, $16 trillion would buy Apple, Inc. 25 times. It would buy the Chicago Cubs more than 9,000 times or pay this year’s undergraduate tuition for more than 1.3 billion University of Illinois students. It’s a lot of money.
The national debt is currently exceeding our nation’s GDP. This means that even if our government collected every penny our economy reels in, it still would not even cover the debt our government has created. Even though part of the debt issue was created under the Bush Administration because of the wars that were waged, the amount of debt that President Bush created in eight years was doubled under the Obama Administration in only four years. The main contributor in Obama’s Administration debt explosion was the so-called “stimulus,” which showed little to no to bad results as key economic indicators point out.
The issue here is that our government is spending money recklessly, and the taxpayers suffer the consequences and eventually foot the bill. If it is not from the taxpayers’ wallets then it is either lent from foreign investors or simply just printing more money with nothing to hold the value of our currency. If the foreign countries lending us money take away our credit card, it could have disastrous effects.
How can we trust the government with our money when it is wasting it and putting a burden on us in the future due to their negligence? Who is going to pay back this debt? We are. We paid taxes for the government to throw away on pointless social programs and “stimulus.” Now, we will have to pay more taxes in the future to foot the bill for this wasteful spending. If we spread out the debt amongst the population, each citizen will have to fork over nearly $52,000. When considering just the taxpayers, each would have to pay $140,500. That number is going up, and that means taxes are going up. Higher taxes on business means they will hire fewer people, which means fewer jobs for us when we graduate. It is a potentially devastating cycle.
The issue with the role of the government is still a top priority that many are concerned about and is a top issue in the election. Republicans want to cut spending, help businesses create more jobs and hire more people and begin to pay down the national debt. It is economically proven that by reducing the size of government and by decreasing taxes, economic expansion will be possible. In the long run, we will begin to see the debt clock move backward and our nation will move forward as the economic powerhouse.