From Fox News and the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's proposed budget predicts the national deficit will crest at a record-breaking $1.6 trillion in the current fiscal year, then start to recede in 2011 to just below $1.3 trillion.
Still, the administration's new budget proposal to be released Monday says deficits over the next decade will average 4.5 percent of the size of the economy, a level that economists say is dangerously high if not addressed.
$1.6 trillion dollars is equivalent to everyone in the United States borrowing a little more than $5000. That's $5000 that we don't have, and that is coming from China and other buyers of American Treasury Bonds.
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I find this a little problematic. Someone is going to have to pay this money back, because the interest will keep rising and rising, yet in our current political climate, I wonder if it will be possible.
The interest (hundreds of billions of dollars) is going to ruin us, because unlike every other emergency this country faces, it won't be solved by a single act of Congress, or an emergency bi-partisan meeting. We can only fix this with long-term discipline from both sides. How likely do you think that is?
How can we guarantee that the party in power will get control of this spending? Does the political will even exist?
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