The Guardian 12 December, 2007
Daily, US debt grows by $1.4 billion
WASHINGTON: Like a ticking time bomb, the US national debt is waiting to explode, growing by $1.4 billion daily, at almost $1 million per minute.
For people in the United States, that means a debt of almost $30,000 for each man, woman and child, the AP reported.
In fact, even if some people have escaped unscathed from the recent mortgage and credit crisis and are dealing with high fuel prices without too much trouble, they could still be headed for poverty, along with the rest of the country, the article noted.
The government is rapidly exhausting the resources it needs to meet interest payments on the national debt, which now stands at $9.13 trillion.
And just like people who took out adjustable-rate mortgages on their homes, the government may see its own debt — now at relatively low interest rates — begin to have much higher rates, making the financial suffering greater.
As long as someone is willing to keep lending money to the US government, the debt will be mostly relegated to oblivion.
But interest payments continue to accumulate, and with time could overshadow other government spending, leading to considerably higher taxes or cuts in basic services like social security and other federal government programs.
A major economic slowdown, which some economists say could be fast approaching, could accelerate the arrival of that moment. The national debt, which is the accumulation of all annual budget deficits, has risen from a total of $5.7 trillion, when George W Bush took office in January 2001, and will exceed $10 trillion when he leaves office in January 2009.
Granma