Emerging Issues: Growing National Debt

"I'd rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt." -Benjamin Franklin

The national debt is a hot topic lately, this debt has been the cause of many things and is linked to the recent recession. Thousands of houses have been foreclosed, unemployment rates have risen, gas prices and inflation rates have escalated, and the government has had a partial shut down. This website, http://www.usdebtclock.org/, keeps constant track of how much debt is accumulated. It is pretty eye opening when you see how quickly our debt gets racked up. The website also shows a break down of each state and each category that the spending occurs in. When looking at the debt clock it is easy to see why the country is in the state it's in.

 

 



http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658383

This journal article puts it's focus on how we could try and prevent a national debt explosion. The article focuses on some of the fiscal problems the debt has created and ways we can try to mend the problems the debt has forced us into. The article begins by taking a look at the current situation we are in economically and the current economic outlook and the risks we take. To counteract the risks that we face, it also talks about three steps that people can use on an individual level to help regain financial stability and get themselves out of debt; these steps are: 1. Stop digging 2. Use mixed financing and 3. Reduce tax expenditure.

 

 

This video is very eye opening, it puts the debt onto a personal level and puts it in the perspective of if the debt was yours and if you as a viewer we're having to pay it off and manage it. 

 

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/debt_deficit_history

This article focuses on the history of our deficit and shows how the deficit has grown and changed since 1900.

 www.econ.ucsb.edu/~bohn/papers/BohnDebtConsequences.pdf

This last article talks about the consequences that we could be facing with the rising debt costs. Some of the topics include the government as a financial intermediary, the challenges of managing our expectations, and conventional macroeconomic effects. The article concludes with giving reasons for why we need to work towards keeping our national debt low.