I liked the title which was on the front page of the
printed Republic and more or less said your familys
share of the national debt is almost a half million
bucks.
Long-term federal obligations nearing $500,000 per householdThe $57.3 trillion in federal liabilities the use means each and every man, woman, and child of the 300 million people in the USA owes $191,000. I really like the idiot quoted at the end who says "If we fix health care, then our deficits can be easily dealt with," because future generations will have greater income. Yea Sure! Effectively the USA is bankrupt! How many people are in the USA as of 2008? About 300 million which is 300,000,000How do you write the number $57.3 trillion? You write its as $573 with 12 added to the end as $57,300,000,000,000$57.3 trillion is the same as $57,300 billion $57.3 trillion is the same as $57,300,000 million When we talk about how much the Federal government owes there are two numbers we use. The first is the national debt. The national debt is how much money the federal government has borrowed from private citizens and has to pay back. The federal government borrows money using things like bonds and T-bills. At any given time this number is know to the penny. Right now the national debt is about $9 trillion. The second number is how much the federal government will have to pay out in the future for services it has promised to pay. This includes services such as Social Security and Medicare and many other things which the feds have promised to provide in the future. This number isnt an exact number because until the feds actually provide the services nobody knows how much they will cost. This number is usually about three times the national debt. My title at the top of this page is wrong. It says Your share of the national debt is $191,000That number not for the national debt. The number I used is the national debt combined with the second number, which is a rough estimate of the cost of services Uncle Sam will have to pay out in the future for services like Social Security and Medicare. Long-term federal obligations nearing $500,000 per household by Dennis Cauchon - May. 19, 2008 12:00 AM USA Today The federal government's long-term financial obligations grew by $2.5 trillion last year, a reflection of the mushrooming cost of Medicare and Social Security benefits as more baby boomers reach retirement. That amounts to double the red ink of a year earlier. Taxpayers are on the hook for a record $57.3 trillion in federal liabilities, or nearly $500,000 per household, a USA Today analysis found. When obligations of state and local governments are added, the total rises to $61.7 trillion, or $531,472 per household. That is more than four times what Americans owe in personal debt such as mortgages. The $2.5 trillion in federal liabilities dwarfs the $162 billion the government officially announced as last year's deficit, down from $248 billion a year earlier. "We're running deficits in the trillions of dollars, not the hundreds of billions of dollars we're being told," says Sheila Weinberg, chief executive of the Institute for Truth in Accounting of Chicago. The reason for the discrepancy: Modern accounting standards require corporations and state governments to count all new financial obligations, even if the payments will be made years from now. The federal government doesn't follow that rule. Instead of counting lifetime benefits of everyone in the Social Security and Medicare, the government counts the cost of benefits for the current year. The deteriorating condition of these programs don't show up in the government's bottom line, but the government releases the information elsewhere - in Medicare's annual report, for example. Since 2004, USA Today has collected the information to provide taxpayers with a financial report similar to what a corporation would give shareholders. Big new liabilities taken on in 2007: Medicare: $1.2 trillion. Social Security: $900 billion. Civil-servant retirement: $106 billion. Veterans benefits: $34 billion. The multitrillion-dollar loss is a more meaningful financial number than the official deficit, says Tom Allen, chairman of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board, which helps set federal accounting rules. After last year's decline, Medicare has an unfunded liability of $30.4 trillion. That means - in addition to all future Medicare taxes paid by workers and companies - the government needs $30.4 trillion set aside in an interest-earning account, to pay the medical benefits promised to existing taxpayers and beneficiaries. The amount is certain to rise when the oldest of 79 million baby boomers, who are 62 this year, reach 65 and become eligible for Medicare coverage. Economist Dean Baker says the huge liabilities are potentially misleading because future generations will have greater income. "If we fix health care, then our deficits can be easily dealt with," he says. |