National Debt

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The United States of America’s government spending is rising, deficit is persistent, thus the federal debt reached alarming level during recent years. Endlessly skyrocketing the amount of debt in United States of America has been a huge concern to government and citizens. I interviewed two U.S. citizens for their opinions on government spending and national debt so to get different perspectives on this matter. They are Miss. Simpson, the History and Economics teacher at Ocean View Christian Academy, and Jiyoung Park, a college student that takes courses dealing with government and politics with huge interest. When asked what were their thoughts on national debt, Miss Simpson said, “ I do think it should be one of the top decisions that needs …show more content…

There are things that our politicians have paid for, such as dinners out at extravagant restaurants, but are not necessarily something that needs to be spent. I have never understood how someone can pay more for one meal than most Americans make in a day on minimum wage. When it comes to specific programs, there are some that I believe we should eliminate to assist in eliminating our debt.”. Jiyoung responded as “Our government does spend money on a lot of unnecessary things. One example is military. I am not saying that military is unnecessary, it is something that makes us superpower, but the thing about it is that we spend more than 17 countries military expenses combined, and that is when you know that it is little excessive. I think there are also other things that we can focus on.” If government spending continue to be more than that they’ve collected for tax, no matter how hard they try to reduce the debt held by foreign countries, it would not work. We cannot keep on pouring water in a broken jar. U.S. debts in last decades by presidents are following: Woodrow Wilson, $21 billion: Franklin D. Roosevelt, $236; George W. Bush, $5.849 trillion, Barack Obama, $7.917 trillion. Miss Simpson believes that the debt spiraled out of control under …show more content…

According to askheritage.org the Washington Post reported that the national debt is no longer unsustainable. It seems like national debt is not government’s high priority anymore. However, there are plenty of reason why reducing the national debt should be the most urgent problem that the president and congress should address in 2017. The effect that the national debt can have on the economy is tremendously impactful. Cost of living will rise because the government will find a way to collect money by putting higher interest rate on anything from credit card from house mortgage. There will be a generational inequality because by not being responsible for the current generation’s debt, people are giving burden of reducing debt to our next generation which will threaten their standard of living and retirement plan. It cause slower wage growth. Instead of making productive investments, money goes to buying government debt. The debt have huge impacts on fiscal policy. Economicshelp.org defines fiscal policy as a policy involves the government changing the levels of taxation and government spending in order to influence Aggregate Demand (AD) and the level of economic activity. The federal debt cause reduction of fiscal flexibility. Between 2008 and 2013 the GDP increased from 35 percent to 70 percent due to the Great Recession. Because of high debt, our government is not

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