Reasons for you young folks to be happy-

So why would a Canadian even care about the finacial situation of the United States?-How does our situation impact your life up there?-I would think your country has plenty of it's own problems that could use fixing-You may want to consider starting your problem solving right there at home-

 

I haven't brought national politics into this at all. It isn't a national conflict. It's a generational one.

The debt problems of Canada created by the baby boomers throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s, are at the very least mirrored extremely heavily by the US. I would argue that this crosses national borders.

 

It's good to see Canada running some consistent surpluses.

http://www.fin.gc.ca/ec2005/ec/ecc3e.html

I'm in the U.S. right now and the national debt is being run up like no tomorrow by the Bush administration. I know I'll get blamed for it when I'm older, even though there doesn't seem that there's much I can do about it now, other than keep voting incumbents out of office.

We did have a little progress here with a year or two of surplus near the end of the Clinton term, but that reversed after 911.

National debt was a big political issue in the U.S. in the 80s and 90s. It was a main issue for the Republican party when they took control of the Congress in 1994. Somehow people today don't seem that concerned about it anymore.

Congressional elections are tomorrow, and I haven't really heard national debt being brought up as an important issue.

.

 

Mostly from a previous post:

The U.S. National Debt is an outrage and a sin against the future. Plus the interest being paid is little mentioned. The interest expense paid on the National Debt is the third largest expense in the federal budget. In Fiscal Year 2006, the U. S. Government spent $406 Billion on interest payments to the holders of the National Debt [THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF (US) $46,347,031.96 PER HOUR or (US) $772,450.53 PER MINUTE]. Compare that to NASA at $15 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion.

If you'll check this chart: http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt_files/image002.gif

Notice the National Debt starting a sharp increase in 1980, and how the amount of the debt leveled off the last couple Clinton years, and notice the amount of increase during what is labeled "1st Oil War" and "2ed Oil War". Then the increase began again as soon as the Bush administration "took" office in 2000 - before 9/11.

Other National debt info:
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._public_debt
http://www.federalbudget.com/

By the way, the debt going up is no accident, it is part of a plan. Why is the National Debt going up? "Starve the beast"

From: http://www.massdems.org/hotissues/mdppr_102_bayliss.htm

"...during the administration of Republican President Reagan, the goal was "starve the beast." Budget director David Stockman admitted that supply-side economics was a "Trojan horse" to cut taxes on the wealthy. He confessed in his memoirs that Reagan ran up the deficit on purpose, as an excuse to cut domestic spending."

Also see: http://www.ppionline.org/ndol/print...ontentid=251788

The when and causes of the "debt problems of Canada" are unknown to me. But the U.S. National Debt in 1980 (start of Regan administration) was about 12% of the current debt. The 60s & 70s had close to nothing to do with it. The problem was deliberately caused starting in the 1980s by the Regan administration. And it is indeed an inter-national problem.

By the way, if you look at the Regan & both Bush administrations, (Ragan, G.H.W. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, congressional leaders, etc.), you'll see most of the power players are pre-baby boomer generation.

Peace,
poor_old_dad

 

Thank You again P.O.D.-Once again your knowledge and insight wins the day!-You are so right about the Reagan years-That is when the debt problem began in big time-The boomers are guilty of nothing more then trying to bring the troops and all the tax payers money back home-Our SociaL Security system is a great plan when you don't have leaders wanting to borrow form it or get people to invest their savings into shakey investments-Remember' Bush had stock in Enron!-He would have loved for more peiople to take their S.S money and invest with them-or Haliburton-etc-See-What our friend here from Canada dosen't realize is that the major cause of debt is war-War is expensive and we as the World Police Department spend alot on war toys-Have you looked at the price of laser guided missles lately?-How much you figure a good bunker buster goes for these days?-Actually for all we spend on defense it's amazing were not all in the bread lines-I think it's been quite a while since Canada had to waste money on a war and thats good-hopefuuly it will stay that way-Now it's time to vote for change-we can get out of this mess were in if we have people that know how to communicate with the world leaders-The Bush method failed big time-We have fences to mend-We need to rethink the whole idea of saving the world-Our money is American and our debts have no big impact on other countries-It would sure be nice if we could get all these countries that owe us money to pay up!-