According to the overwhelming and scary Debt Clock the United States of America is over $15 trillion in debt. $15 trillion!! I'm five fingers short of being able to count all the zeros. Horrifying, scary and worst of all, RED!
America's massive debt IS a BIG problem, but no one really seems to understand that it is not a big problem RIGHT NOW.
America's massive debt was supposed to drive interest rates on American bonds through the roof. I guess we're still waiting for that to happen. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve's policy of quantitative easing was supposed send inflation soaring, but the commodities that do cost significantly more - food and gas - are global commodities; the price of gas is no longer dictated by the American market...it must not be the 1960's anymore.
Everyone agrees that we need to fix America's economy. After all, we're only four years away from being passed by China as the world's largest economy - by the way, the scariest and strangest part of that chart is that is that China grants more patents to residents than does the United States. But if we all agree that we need to fix the economy, why can we not take the obvious and necessary steps?
Those who understand know that what we need right now is more spending not less. Those who understand also know that we do need to take steps to reform entitlements and curb defense spending. If we can foster an economic recovery in the short-term and curb spending in the long-term, we can avoid the tax hikes on the richest Americans that are anathema to conservatives. In fact Republicans are so desperate to make the rich richer that they have been willfully fighting against policies that might lead to recovery. But hey, we all see how well austerity is working in Europe!
I sincerely hope that America's politicians (half of them) figure out that perhaps if we spent now we could avoid taxing later. The debt is big, and it's a potentially big problem. But it's not a problem now unless we keep trying to make it one.
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