The U.S. Treasury has just released its latest numbers on our country’s debt and it is not pretty as you can imagine.  Our federal government’s “debt held by the public”, not including “”, has topped $14,000,000,000,000 for the first time in history.

By the way when President Barack Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, the federal government’s debt held by the public was $6,307,310,739,681.66. That increase of $7,705,599,169,854.87 represents a 122% increase.

I ask all of you no matter where your political ideologue lies how long can we as a country and taxpayers allow our elected politicians to take us down this rat hole?  Those of you who have not had a concern about our Nations deficit and debt, what number will finally wake you up and realize this is a valid concern?

CNS News has written an article that has a great description on the definition of “debt held by the public” and “intragovernmental debt”.

As CNS News states in their article:

The U.S. government “debt held by the public” largely consists of marketable Treasury Notes, Bonds, Bills, Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS), and Floating Rate Notes (FRNs) issued by Treasury. Non-marketable debt held by the public is comprised of U.S. Savings Bonds, State and Local Government State and Local Government Securities (SLGS)

 

The “intragovernmental debt” is primarily money the Treasury has borrowed and spent out of government trust funds, such as the Social Security trust funds.

What our government calls “intragovernmental debt” is what many of you know as the vault or briefcase (see Jim Carrey’s movie Dumb and Dumber) that is supposed to have cash actually have IOU”S in them.

Another thought to ponder, the average interest rate that our Treasury was paying on our “debt held by the public” under President George W. Bush was 4.963%.  Our current average interest rate that our Treasury is paying on our “debt held by the public” under President Barack Obama is 2.026%.  Now imagine how much the interest cost of our current and future debt will increase if we were to go back up to approximately 5%?  It would be approximately a 150% increase, that would bust our budget even more and our nation debt will explode at an even higher rate than it has been, it will essentially become a debt death spiral.  It will also put in danger many of the programs that our Federal government should be funding.

Now what is your thought on the danger of our nation’s deficit and debt problem?

Let’s talk about this today on The Live with Renk Show which airs Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to noon. To let me know your thoughts during the show please call (269) 441-9595.

Or please feel free to start a discussion and write your thoughts in the comment section.

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