Why the National Debt Matters

The national debt is approaching $9 Trillion dollars

In Fiscal Year 2005, the US government spent $352 Billion of your money on interested payments alone!

To put it in perspective: that's $352 Billion that could have gone toward providing homes to the hurricane victims, building more schools, purchasing books or computers for students, paying college tuition, building community centers to keep kids off the streets, repairing our decaying roads and highways, or providing health care.

How does payment on the interest compare with other expenditures:

• Education at $61 Billion
• Department of Transportation at $56 Billion
• NASA at $15 Billion

Interest payments on the national debt are the fastest-rising expenditure in the federal budget. At the rate debt is accumulating, gross interest costs will exceed defense spending by 2011.

National Security

With all his talk about stopping the terrorists Bush seems oblivious to the biggest threat we face -- that China will call in their loan.

The Editorial Board of the Des Moines Register writes: "All it would take would be for other countries to stop lending money to the U.S. government -- perhaps triggered by another disaster here or abroad -- and there could be soaring interest rates, a crashing stock market and all the misery that would follow.

"More than one-fourth of the national debt is owed to foreigners, with China among the largest creditors. Even a rumor that China will stop buying U.S. notes is enough to send shock waves through Wall Street."


We can no longer afford the spend and tax-cuts-for-the-rich policy of the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. This is an election year -- it's time some folks got their pink slips.