U.S. debt load falling at fastest pace since 1950s
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Everyone knows America has too much debt. What they don’t know is that things are getting better, not worse.
Little by little, our economy is reducing its debt burden, slowly repairing the damage caused by 10, 20 or 30 years of excess.
If you want to know why economic growth has been so tepid, here’s your answer. Four years after the storm hit, the economy is still deleveraging. And it’s very hard for any economy to grow when everyone is focused on increasing their savings. Total domestic — public and private — debt as a share of the economy has declined for 12 quarters in a row after surging over the previous decade.
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As much as we hear politicians, pundits, tea-party patriots and the Congressional Budget Office obsessing about government debt, it was excessive private debt — not public debt — that caused the 2008 financial meltdown. And it was private debt — some of it since transferred to the public — that lies behind the current European debt crisis. (Greece is unique in having a public sector that ran up spending while its private sector is rather conservative.)
As the political rhetoric about the federal deficit has heated up, we’ve lost sight of the progress that’s been made in bringing total debt back under control. The U.S. is actually doing much better than you’d think if you just listened to the conventional fears about how we’re rushing headlong into a debt Armageddon.
In fact, since the recession ended in June 2009, total U.S. debt has risen at the slowest pace since they began keeping records in the early 1950s. While Washington has taken on a lot of debt since then, the private sector has paid off, written off or dumped on the government almost as much.
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-debt-load-falling-fastest-040045522.html
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cut taxes, that will push that debt up. Also, attack Iran, Syria and Pakistan that should push it up nicely.
Then to take care of all the revenue cuts and new war spending eliminate the social safety net of course there will be more tax cuts and cost of new wars than the social safety net cost. That will fix this little problem nicely.
