Debt is something we all incur throughout our lifetime. From student loans and credit cards to monthly bills, we all have owed something to someone. As individuals we try to keep our debt to a minimum that can be easily maintained or paid off. Even multi-billion dollar corporations incur debt that is closely monitored by their chief financial officers and their staff.
Whether we realize it, we incur all kinds of debt everyday. Fees, annual charges, daily balances and more factor into the debt we owe or could possibly owe, but no matter how much debt is incurred by individuals, it can never compare to the national debt. According to zFacts.com, the national debt is approximately $9.4 trillion and climbing higher every second of the day.
Instead of proposing another multi-billion or trillion dollar budget, the government should concentrate more on the current state of the Union.
To break things down a little bit, each citizen’s share of the national debt amounts to a little more than $30,950, according to www.brillig.com.
For that amount of money, we could pay for college, buy a car or even put a sizable down payment on a house. You have to wonder how and why we as a country incurred such an alarming deficit.
Perhaps part of that money could go toward federal funding for education, such as for funding programs to better prepare college bound students, spending what is needed to improve fine-arts programs and perhaps allotting more money for Pell grants.
It could also be put toward improving healthcare. It seems that more and more people do not have the means to pay for healthcare.
Whether one is buying over-the-counter medicines or physician-prescribed medicines, the total cost is still pretty outrageous in the sense that the money spent on medicine could have been used for gas, food and other daily necessities.
The money could also be put toward a relief fund for those Americans who have been or even potentially will be affected by a national disaster.
It seems as if our federal government could care less about what happens to the citizens who voted for the individuals who are supposed to represent us. By spending so much money, especially on the war, the U.S. economy is slowly slipping away.
Think about it people. Since the war started, the things that truly matter to the American people seem to have been thrown out the door by the Bush administration. For example, in case no one has noticed, the price of unleaded gasoline has risen to about $3.13 per gallon. The more gas prices increase, the more the cost of everything else we use increases.
The fact of the matter is this: the national debt is at an extreme high. Other countries have a certain view of the United States, and the fact that "we’re going broke" does not leave a lasting impression. It is bad enough we meddle in another country’s business when we cannot fix our own.
Latimer, a post-baccalaureate English student, can be reached at [email protected].
