National Debt Perspective,

[seapower]

I got to thinkin' about this debt and being that a debt is supposed to be paid off. How much would it cost each one of us taxpayers to pay this debt off today. Wait just a minute the math is not gonna be quite that easy. Take the debt and instead of dividing it by population, divide it by only tax paying population. I'm not saying that those on the public dole don't pay taxes, they just pay taxes with my money, so they don't count. I don't know how hard it will be to seperate the productive population from the rest. Thats the only way I believe we can get our heads wrapped around just how much we owe. Got my check book ready, now if I just have enough ink in my pen. Frank

[clt_capt]

Well Frank - I'm glad you have that perspective, because before Aug 2nd, you will get the chance to take out your checkbook I suspect... In the form of reduced "tax breaks"

I fear that no matter how much "fat" is trimmed out of government spending, there will "have" to be tax increases...

I'm actually all for reducing the tax breaks for the large corporations - especially where they do not re-invest in America. Quite frankly it bothers me that companies like GE are paying little to no taxes, but are moving manufacturing overseas. The way I see it, they can either pay taxes or pay American wages - Either one helps reduce the deficit...

[RWW]

Hard to wrap my head around $14,000,000,000,000. I mean really... but I thought what if I figured out how many seconds are in a year assuming 365 days per year, happens to be about 31,536,000. Ok that is a lot of seconds but I can wrap my head around that. Lets assume that every second you throw 1 dollar on a pile, how many years would you have to sit there 24 hours a day throwing 1 dollar per second to get your pile to 14 trillion?






You would be a mighty old guy or gal!
Approximately 443,937 years

Another perspective
The US total population is about 311,691,000 people
Lets assume that EVERYONE paid one dollar per year how long woould it take to pay it back? A little faster.... approximately 44,916 years
What if EVERYONE paid a dollar per month? approximately 3,743 years

How much would EVERYONE in the US have to pay if we had to pay this debt off in one year? $44,916.28......of course this would never happen...

of course all of this is assuming zero interest is being paid