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Townhall...
US
Debt
Exceeds GDP; Joins Miscreants Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan
and
Portugal
by Bob
Beauprez
January 16, 2012
Short,
sweet... and scary - Editor
The U.S.
federal debt has surpassed the total production of the entire country. According to a feature
article in USA Today,
total debt of $15.3 trillion now exceeds GDP.
Anyone who
has been paying just a little bit of attention has known for some time
that at
the rapid rate the debt was increasing it was destined to exceed the
GDP. But, as the
report documents, only six other
nations in the developed world – all in perilous condition - have debt
levels
that exceed their total economic output: Greece, Iceland, Ireland,
Italy, Japan
and Portugal.
Within a
decade, the Obama administration projects the debt will increase
another 70
percent to $26 trillion.
Even if the
economy could grow at an average annual rate of 3 percent over the
decade, GDP
would be just barely $20 trillion, leaving a debt-to-GDP ratio of 128
percent.
From USA
Today:
Among
advanced economies, only Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan and
Portugal
have debts larger than their economies. Greece, Ireland, Portugal and
Italy are
at the root of the European debt crisis. The first three needed
bailouts from
European central banks; Italy’s books are monitored by the
International
Monetary Fund.
The White
House and Congress agreed in August to cut about $1 trillion from
federal
agencies over 10 years. An additional $1.2 trillion in automatic
spending cuts
looms beginning next year if lawmakers can’t agree on a better way to
do it.
Economist
Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics says reaching the 100% mark shows “the
grave
need to address our long-term fiscal problems.”
Read this
and other columns at Townhall...
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