Are you watching CNN? Did you just see Jonathan Levs report? Debt doubled in one year! 10.8 trillion

[originalpckelly]

In other words, in only one year, the US government has committed to 10.8 trillion dollars of spending from the first stimulus checks to Americans to latest stimulus bill, which is the same amount as the national debt! So in other words, because taxes won't be covering this, the US government has doubled its debt in only a year! How can the deficit be only a couple trillion? They must be lying to us!

It's like it's falling off a cliff and at an exponential rate.

Hopefully that will be on YouTube.

It's clear why Rep. Maxine Waters said we were close to total collapse right now.

[sandnsea]

1. The deficit has been less than a trillion

So with a nearly $800 billion stimulus, in addition to whatever the regular budget will be - yes they will double deficit spending this year.

And yes it will probably take us to a $10+ trillion national debt.

And the shock comes from where exactly??

[originalpckelly]

3. No, they've spent 10 trillion in the last year on all the bailouts and stuff.

Either that or Levs math is wrong.

[DS1]

5. his math is wrong

He's saying that we spend the total amount we've built up owing over 40 years in one?

unlikely

[originalpckelly]

7. Sorry, we've committed to spending 10.8 trillion in the last year...

because of all the guarantees we've given. We've spent 2 odd trillion.

[sandnsea]

10. The debt and deficit are not the same

We have committed to a lot of spending, A LOT, but the $10.8 trillion figure is our total national debt, afaik.

[originalpckelly]

13. I know that, but if you appropriate all the money in one year...

and you don't raise taxes, it's bound to cause the deficit to increase for that fiscal year. They're accounting for this stuff with Enron techniques, we should have had a 8-9 trillion deficit, because they've already allocated the money.

[sandnsea]

15. Were they adding federal reserve money?

I know there have been a few articles about the money that has been made available through the federal reserve banks, especially last year. Are they adding all of that money into the mix?

[originalpckelly]

16. I don't know, their math isn't available on the internet!

Which is not right, why get people all pissed off, and yet not provide more thorough explanations of it?

[sandnsea]

17. $5 trillion committed by government

There's an article in this OP, is this what you were referring to.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5110374

[Zynx]

12. That commitment is not at all a certainty.

Also, we've only spent 2 odd trillion if you count the stimulus package.

[originalpckelly]

14. I know, we don't really need to have that money, just like credit default swap con artists...

we can only have pennies set aside for dollars. So even though we're in an unprecedented down turn, which is now taking another down leg, doesn't mean we have a problem here.

If the shit hits the fan, which it has been doing for some time with regularity, we're on the hook for the 8 billion they set aside.

[MarjorieG]

6. Maybe previous commitments, totals, but not what's been done since last Fall.

That's a little partisan revisionism.

[originalpckelly]

8. No, it's all the money done for stimulus since December 2007.

The bulk of it was Bush.

[Zynx]

11. It is horrible accounting. The rise in the debt is nowhere near that much.

This is public information. You can check it out on the Treasury's website. That is a total level of potential commitments made by both the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that do not in any way represent a tangible spending level.

[cliffordu]

2. Now might be a good time to buy bulk....

I'm personally stocking up on bicycle tubes, chains and tires.

[depakid]

4. Query- how much did debt rise per year during World War II

and what percentage of GDP was it?

Much as I agree with Maxine Water's politics- she's long had a propensity for going over the top- and I haven't found her to be a very well considered economic thinker.

[Zynx]

9. That math is horrifically wrong.

We can actually see what our debt is. That number is the total obligations the government has if pretty much every financial institution fails. You can look at what our debt is right now. It isn't anywhere near the number they suggest.