Debt Clock

I just added the National Debt Clock to journal today. Debt became a major project of mine in the last 5 years as I determined to completely eliminate all my personal debt and do the best I can to remain debt free or if I do use credit to use it as sparing and wisely as possible.

I am within 3 months of seeing that goal accomplished. Having gone through this it made me realize more than I had before the differences between serious discussions of policy to adders our nation's debt and political ones. If you look at the National Debt Clock I have a few things to keep in mind. It has been going up rapidly for my entire lifetime. I have never known a period in my life when it wasn't going up. Every President in my life time has contributed to the problem.

Every president in modern times has taken money form the so-called "social security trust fund" to pay interest on the national debt. In 2005 the "trust fund" was exhausted. In 8 years of President Bush we saw the debt go up around $10,000,000,000,000.00. In just over two years of Obama it has going up by nearly 5,000,000,000,000 with trillions going to "stimulus" that we were told we had to have to keep unemployment below 8%. Since the fistulous unemployment has been over 9% for well over a year and at times was over 10%. the actual unemployment in the country is far higher than the official rate.

If we raised taxes on everyone in this nation to 100% of income we could not solve the debt problem with revenue increases. It stands to reason therefore that anyone constantly insisting that in an increase in revenue, which is code for raising taxes, on only some Americans is a serious fix to the problem is either delusional or lying. I know which I think it is...

Our nation has a terminal spending disease where we cannot seem to convince our leaders to act responsibly. current crops of leaders in both parties refuse to address the problem due to fear of political repercussions due to the pain it will have to cause to turn things around. our leaders are scared to do what needs to be done since it will require the country to face some realities as to what we can afford to continue spending on.

If we as a nation fail to address these issues I belie it is possible we will see the demise of our republic in my lifetime. Our current path is simply unsustainable.

The coming elections may demonstrate how many Americans really do understand what we are facing. The times dictate that it is no longer sufficient to argue over whether D or An R is better. What we need is to elect leaders who understand the reality we face and are willing to do what is necessary to start correcting it.

To continue to pretend that just having a D or an R is the basis for choosing leaders is folly. It is high time we start evaluating if those seeking higher office are qualified, serious, and honest enough to admit the situation at hand and bold enough to do what will be necessary to confront it.