Americas Economic Debate
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“Government that governs least governs best.”
Thomas Jefferson
43% percent of the National Income (spending) is controlled by state and local sectors instead of the prominent private sector. Why do they immediately control how deep in debt the whole country is in? In the end it is the following generation that will unwillingly be endowed with this record high national debt and growing deficit. It is said that in America our government has marginal influence on our economy; that it does not get involved with our market. Laissez-Fair for example a core policy which America proudly claims to practice, and is included in every US History book in the nation seems to be just that history.
Such accusations are being heard across the nation as Americans are greeted every morning with a headline or two reminding us of how much more in debt our country really is. Many are quick to point the finger at someone; anyone (Bush, Iraq etc.) But the truth is that Bush inherited a receding economy from the all famous Clinton administration. In addition to his inherited downward slope, the events that occurred on the 11th of September did not help, in fact it had a cataclysmic effect on the economy. At this point America was confused; it was only a little over a year ago that politicians were bragging about a $557 billion surplus!(2001) The US was at an all time low and all it could do was sit back and wait for things to turn around, things that made our great economy work; like confidence, security, things that kept consumers want to keep spending. And like the great nation that America is; slowly but surely things did begin to turn around, but the decision to retaliate the attack on our demoralized constitutional republic proved
to be just another setback on the latter of the goal to reach a strong and secure economic standard. This is not a history paper but this information will later be used to make a point.
The total economy is made up of 2 basic components: the portion dependent
on federal, state and local government spending is called the GOVERNMENT SECTOR, the part remaining is not dependent
on government spending. In fact it depends on growth of national productivity, savings and real incomes. This portion of the economy is called the PRIVATE SECTOR.
In the past the Private sector rightfully so was much larger than the Government sector, but as
stated before the government sector controls 43% of our economy! This is not including added
economic control by un-funded government mandated
regulatory compliance costs that can raise this
percentage of power to 57%! laissez-faire-faire? where?
(refer to pie chart:
One must question oneself if the countries name to
whom this chart belongs too was not given could one
have imagined it belonged to America? Moreover
studies show that the 43% our government controls costs $12,990 per man, woman or child. That means per family of 4 it costs $51,990! These facts are serious indicators that something is wrong. To support this spending, all earnings for 5.3 months are required from the average worker.
The degree of government dominance over our economy is unknown to many, and in addition is not what the foundation of this country was built on. The following chart shows how government spending has gradually increased over the years, controlling larger amounts of our national economy. It does not show the path America should be on. Continuance of this can lead to many changes in our form of government. Countries that follow that way of governing are viewed as Socialist.(refer to pie chart:
America will hopefully not move in this
direction, as its citizens would not allow it,
but look how far its already gone.
Furthermore one would think all this money
would be enough..its not, our nation is in
about a $7 Trillion debt as of January, 1st,
2004. So where does most of our money go?
To pay the interests on these massive loans our government keeps approving. The future
generations will be interested to know why they will be paying debt from decades in the past, and
essentially that is what will happen. It is the
future generations the will pay for all of the
nations “borrowing” now. This nation
consumes on credit…..the future nation will pay for it. It is calculated that each child will
automatically have a debt of # 23,270 before they enter kindergarten, and this statistic is rising. A
horrid threat to the home of many families is the nations increased dependence of federal debt.
When total Federal Government Debt is
totaled and then divided by the nations
estimated population the results show that
every person would be in debt about $25,099
and rising.
Rising because even knowing this on
September 30th 2004 federal debt increased
$596 billion! So again everyone is a
critic…who