The fiscal year for the federal government ended on September 30, 2005 and the national debt was over $550 billion ($553,656,965,393.18 to be exact) more than it was on September 30, 2004. That means you and over 297,354,000 other Americans were each about $1,861.94 deeper in debt.
The national debt now stands at nearly $8 trillion ($7,932,709,661,723.50 to be exact) making the per capita debt over $26,675 as of September 30, 2005. The share of the national debt for a family of three is now over $80,000. Of course, the big spending elitists that Americans vote for have no intention of ever paying this debt.
It is an amazing system. The Federal Reserve Bank essentially creates fiat money out of thin air and lends it to the government. In addition to fueling inflation and making your money worth less, they charge you interest only payments paid for through your taxes. At only 3% interest, this amounts to about $800 per year, or about $2,400 for a family of three.
Many of you are probably thinking this can't be right. Maybe you don't even pay that much in taxes every year. Some may be asking how I can say the debt will never be paid off. Well, the fact is that the national debt has increased every year since 1960, even with those "surpluses" we were told about. I think that after 45 years of not paying down the debt even one thin dime, we can safely assume it is the policy of the financial wizards to never pay the debt off.
Those who are fortunate enough not to be paying $800 per year in income taxes don't know how lucky they are. The interest on the debt is only a small part of the $2.568 trillion budget for this fiscal year. Under this budget, the government will spend over $8,600 for each American during this fiscal year ending September 30, 2006.
You can see that the interest on the national debt is less than 10% of the entire budget. Consider yourself lucky if you aren't paying $8,600 in income taxes this year. But, maybe you are paying that much and don't realize it. Maybe you think those big greedy corporations are paying the lion's share of taxes that fund the federal government.
Then again, maybe you don't realize that big greedy corporations don't really pay taxes - they pass them on to consumers. I have often heard that approximately 20% of the retail cost paid by the consumer goes to pay taxes. Of course, some big greedy corporations that have good lobbyists really don't pay any taxes, but that is another topic.
In addition to the high prices you pay for the items you buy (due to both taxes and inflation), you also pay FICA taxes no matter how little you make. The dirty little secret they don't tell you about is that the high rollers in Washington take this FICA money and throw it in the same pot with all the other revenue. This FICA money is often described as your insurance premium for Social Security and Medicare, but these "premiums" are really taxes.
To put the expanding national debt into perspective, compare the national debt in 1975 of less than $577 billion to the current debt of nearly $8 trillion. In 2005 dollars, the 1975 debt was about $2.16 trillion. Now, it took nearly 200 years to rack up that amount of debt and only 30 more years to almost quadruple that amount.
Clever politicians will tell you that the annual deficit, as a percentage of the economy, is actually less than in the past - as they borrow over $1.5 billion every day on the nation's credit card. This may or may not be true. What they don't mention is that the debt has been accumulating for 45 years and they have been unable to pay it down by even one plugged nickel.
What does it say about a nation that holds itself out to be a shining beacon of morality yet saddles future generations with massive debt to pay for unnecessary luxuries and unnecessary wars? What kind of people are willing to bankrupt their children while they vote for shysters that claim to care so much about the children? Two answers come to mind - hypocrites and fools.
This article contributed by Tom Blanton of Richmond, Virginia.