National Debt: US National Debt According to US Debt Clock, org

August 17, 2013

Some people say a man is made outta mud
A poor man's made outta muscle and blood
Muscle and blood and skin and bones
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.

Song, Sixteen Tons

Medicare and other entitlements are the chief drivers of our national debt.   Yet, for political reasons, we seem helpless to do anything about these mounting debts.

Sometimes statistics speak louder than words.

• Here  are the latest debt statistics for 2013

US national debt, $6.9 trillion

Debt per citizen, $53.5 thousand

Debt per taxpayer, $148 thousand

US  federal spending, $3.5 trillion

Interest per citizen, 9.0 thousand

Social security liability, $16.5 trillion

Prescription drug liability, $21.9 trillion

Medicare liability, $86.9 trillion

Unfunded liabilities,   $125.0 trillion

Liability per taxpayer,  $1.1 million

Total personal debt, $15.8 trillion

Mortgage debt, $13.0 trillion

Student loan debt,  $10 trillion

Credit card debt.  $84.9 trillion

Personal debt per citizen, 50.0 thousand

• And here is my explanation for the debt to future generations.

The Story of Obamacare Cost Inflation as Told to a Future Generation*

*Apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1897-1882), Paul Revere’s Ride 

Listen my children, and you shall hear, of the drama,

Of the health inflation ride of Barack Obama,
 

Who was so obsessed with expanding health care access,

That he forgot his first priority was the economic mess.

So on the twenty third of March of twenty ten,
To the Accountable Care Act he applied his pen.
 

The Patient Protection and Affordability bill passed,
Without a single Republican vote caste.

Most of you are still alive it is now clear,

When Obamacare passed with a cost now so dear.\\
 

The original cost was estimated for a decade at $900 billion

Later revised by Congressional Budget Office to $2.7 trillion.

 

How could the estimate come to this,

Such a massive miscalculation miss?

When it contributed so very much to the national debt,

Which will leave you and your children financially bereft.

Part of it was simply sleight of hand – an artful feint,

Delaying its start until 2014 to avoid cost complaint.

Part of it was talk of $716 billion ravings,

With a ten year series of government savings,

Taken from Medicare,

To fund Obamacare,

Achieved by cutting pay to hospitals and physicians,

Enforced by a 15-member board of non-clinicians.

Part of it was herding doctors and hospitals into accountable organizations,

With fixed budgets, financial risks, and defined Medicare populations,

Part of it was complete lack of fincancial control,

As the system plunged deeper into a financial hole,

 

But who was there to sound and spread the alarm,

When Obama and his party owned the Congressional farm?

 

Tweet: This is for future generations who will wonder how Congress passed a law

contributing $2.7 trillion to the national debt.