NATIONAL DEBT

Did you notice that the National Debt counter in the upper right hand corner of this page topped $14 trillion dollars last week? That is how much money our country owes to others. The others includes many foreign governments and private investors, the majority right now is owed to the Chinese government.

Yes, your Federal Government is spending over $4 billion dollars more every day than it is taking in. To do that, it borrows money in the form of interest bearing bonds. This is such a sad situation. It can't go on forever. Eventually, the amount borrowed will be so large that our creditors will fear that they will stop receiving the interest we are paying on the debt. When this happens, we will have to increase the amount of interest we are willing to pay those who lend us money. When that no longer works, we will have to sell assets or become insolvent.

One of the first tasks of the new congress being seated today, is to increase the statutory debt limit of the Federal Government. Without raising this limit, so the government can borrow more and more, the government would have to shut down. That doesn't sound all that bad to me.
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