This morning was a little different than most because this morning i was driving on sheets of ice while freezing rain is ouring down on the window. Of course this is making noise, so i turn the volume on the radio up so i can hear what is goinng on in the world. The station was the same, KUAF, but the person they were interviewing was describing our national debt, more specifically how the national debt has gone down. WHAT!!! So many things were going through my head at this point including :how we managed to lower the debt, where did all the money come from, and more importantly, how much of the revenue used to reduce the national debt was taken from my personal income taxes?
I decided to listen to the person on the radio a little longer and was surprised to hear that "we do not have a debt problem in the United States, and nor did we ever have a debt problem". Astonishing! I was about to ask the question before i heard it across the airwaves, "How can you determine we do not have a debt problem", the response was, "we do not have a debt problem because the percent of debt to GDP has gone down over the past couple of years". I can't remember what the actual percent quoted wass, but the fact that they would measure debt as a percent of GDP and determine that debt was going down as the result is a problem.
Let me clarify, i think that if the debt to GDP percent is going down, that is probably a good thing. However, just because the percent goes down, does not mean that the debt is going down. It could mean that the GDP is going up and even if our debt is going up, as long as it is at a slower rate than GDP, it would appear that the debt was decreasing as a percent of GDP. At the end of the day, if the national debt is $10 Trillion today and two years from now it is $13 Trillion, debt is going up, regardless of what percent it is of GDP. Stop playinng games, the gameof life is real! Spend money like it was your own, save money for the future, and think of the real impact that the financial decisions have on the American public. You people in Congress are on tax payer time and you need to come up with a real solution to this Debt Ceiling that does not involve you spending more money. Grow Up!
