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Grant Pascoe Malcolm Campbell English 1102 22 January 2014

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Topic Proposal: The National Debt

Introduction/Overview Our country has issues that are becoming more and more apparent every single day: poverty, obesity, job rates, and increasing taxes. The most obvious concern amongst Americans today is the national debt and its ever-increasing total. I will be finding the specific reasons why the debt is so high and what we as Americans can do to help fix it. What I find so fascinating about the debt crisis in the United States is how staggering the number truly is. We are currently holding a national debt of over 17 trillion dollars. Usdebtclock.org has the current debt and its rate of increasing by the second. Just from visiting their website for two minutes, the debt increased almost four million dollars. That was amazing and kind of scary too as that number doesnt look like it has any intention in slowing down. Through some light research, the information I found was mind-boggling, almost sickening even. NBC News did a calculation of the national debt being dispersed amongst its citizens. They found that the debt means that each person currently living in the United States will have to pay $54,346 dollars over the course of their lifetime. That means that due to the governments problems that they have endured, its citizens will have to pay over $50,000 of their hard-earned money. How can any average person afford

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that? It is an intimidating number to me especially because that means I will owe that as well. Will I owe more if the debt continues at this pace? They also found that our debt is 575% more than that of the annual federal revenue. Another amazing number that is almost too hard to fathom. A notable cause of the debt is the spending rates at which the government is maintaining. NBC News found that, Social spending in 1960 accounted for 23% of debt, now social spending as found in 2010 accounted for 61% of the national debt. One would think that the government would make cuts in their spending but over the last 50 years, they have done nothing but almost triple that of 1960. The public opinion is another thing that has come of importance when trying to handle the national debt. NBC News and the Wall Street Journal in 2011 did a survey to see what Americans thought about the debt. They found that, 80% of Americans are concerned a grate deal about the debt. They also discovered that, 18% were willing to raise taxes to help pay off the debt, 35% were willing to cut government spending, but only 1% were willing to do both; raise taxes and cut government spending. I thought that was a very interesting piece of data that they found. Some were okay with spending a bit more on taxes and a few more were all right with cutting some governmental spending, but almost none were content with both as that would most likely affect them financially a great deal. A fun fact that I found while on finance.yahoo.com was about Tom Cruise and how long it would take for him to single handedly pay it off. They found that he made 75 million dollars just last year. For him to make just a trillion dollars, he would have to make 75 million dollars for the next 14,000 years. That was amazing and a good way of really understanding how large the debt really is. Now those 14,000 years would sum to

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one trillion dollars, the national debt however, is currently at 17 trillion. So if you take that 14,000 and multiply it times 17 you get 238,000 years. That is how long it would take Tom Cruise to pay off the debt by himself. Now obviously that would never happen but I thought it was a great example of truly showing how much money 17 trillion dollars really is.

Initial Inquiry Questions Will the national debt ever be fully paid-off? If so, how or what will it take to do so?

My Interest in the Topic I find myself to be so intrigued by this issue of the national debt because it directly affects my future and me. It affects everyone as well, but I am most concerned about what this amazingly high debt will do to my future careers? Family? Cost of living? It all correlates with one another and that is something that I really want to know more about so I can possibly make a difference in the debt or why it isnt slowing down. I already know that the debt is due to excessive government spending but I hope to learn why our government continues at the pace they are at? For such smart people we have on Capitol Hill, why dont they figure something out to help fix this enormous issue?

Next Steps Although the internet is a great source of finding out the reasons for the large debt, it does have the tendency to make mistakes. Especially noting that because these

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numbers are so large, things possibly can be fabricated and I do not want to rely solely on what I see online. I plan on calling a family friend of mine who works on Capitol Hill, as well as visiting our libraries databases.