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The National Debt is a Political Problem |
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Why Does it Go Up Under Reagan and the Bushes?
April 17, 2006. The first year, under Reagan, it was an accident, but it soon became a plan. That's why it has gone on for 16 [now 20] years under Republicans. The national debt is aimed at Social Security, and if left unchecked it will help kill it. So far the federal deficit has borrowed more than $1.6 trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund, and Republicans are warning that it's going to be hard or impossible to pay it back.
Why? Because, with the national debt high and rising, repaying the debt to Social Security (and the workers and businesses who put their money into it) would require unacceptable borrowing from private markets or impossibly large cuts in other government programs.
If we were not running a deficit, as we were not when Bush came to office, there would be no problem with selling T-bonds to raise he money to repay social security, just as we sell them now to finance the deficit.
Another reason for the rising debt: Its main cause is tax cuts for the rich. The super-rich families that fund the think tanks behind this effort get richer while killing Social Security.
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National Debt under Clinton
Clinton stopped the bleeding in just three years and then dropped the debt from 67% to 57% in his last five years. Bush wasted no time in reversing this progress and is now forecasting that he will achieve the highest ratio of debt to GDP in 50 years. For more detail see: Trillion Dollar Politics [PDF] .
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http://zfacts.com/p/59.html | 01/18/12 07:16 GMT
Modified: Sat, 25 Sep 2010 15:38:53 GMT
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