The $10 Trillion Problem

By Tommy Leung on 07/22/2008 in Politics

Secretary Henry Paulson has been calling for a bailout of the insolvent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Democrats in Congress are looking to pass a bill to raise the limit on the national debt. The national debt is over $9.4 trillion already and the deficit for next year is approaching $500 billion. The bailout for Fannie and Freddie is estimated to cost $25 billion by the government.

So, if you and I were in $1,000,000 of debt that was accruing interest on a daily basis, would extending how much more debt we are willing to take on going to solve our problem? Is it a good idea? Of course not! The kicker here is that this $10 trillion of debt is OURS! We are even making monthly payments on it–the government steals money from us every paycheck. Unfortunately, the money that is being taken from us is also being spent instead of paying down debt.

Our national debt in 2001 was in the $5 trillions. We will have almost doubled that by the time Bush leaves office. Neither the Republicans or the Democrats in Congress are fiscally responsible. They are like teenagers with their daddy’s credit card. Paulson has also recently said that we are turning the corner in this housing crisis. Even if that were true, we have just added to another problem: the $10 trillion problem.

By Tommy Leung