Although the increasing deficit doesn’t seem to matter based on the way presidents keep sending money, I think that there needs to be more consciousness of what money is spent on. There are huge deficits at the federal, state and local levels. In my hometown, I couldn’t be hired by the county to work during the summer because they had a million dollar deficit. Washington State has a huge deficit as well, at $2.6 billion. The current national debt is roughly 12 trillion dollars. That is just too large. Now I know that there have been good reasons for the debt increase, things that require money that taxes don’t cover, but I think that sometime spending is done too carelessly, without thought to the long-term consequences. It seems that there really aren’t any consequences, which may be why many presidents don’t even attempt to address the issue of the national debt. It may be true that there aren’t any direct consequences to them during their administration, but I think that way of thinking is irresponsible and negligent because it leaves more problems that future generations have to deal with.
I know that many mew programs demand and require more money than the government has, but much of this extra cost I think is because many of the old ways of doing things are costly and inefficient. I think that the bureaucracy of the U.S. is too large and that it just adds expense to anything that is trying to be done. It’s time for a cleaning out of the system. If someone was to make the hard decisions and eliminate the positions that needlessly add to the expense of our government, I think that our country would be in better shape. Part of this I think is Obama’s responsibility. I know that he his a proponent of a new health care plan which will cost billions of dollars and has pushed Congress to pass a bill in order to stimulate the economy but I think he needs to do more. He does want to pull the U.S. out of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which costs the U.S. billions of dollars per week, but I think that there are more things that can be done. I think that he needs to promote fiscal responsibility. There are hundreds of things that money is wasted on, things that even though the may be small add up quickly to be a source of expenditure that is needlessly too high.
I don’t think that it is necessarily all his responsibility though. I think everyone needs to practice financial responsibility. Part of the problem, perhaps the main reason for the recession and the failure of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were because of irresponsible borrowers and lenders. At the state level too, our leaders need to slow their spending on wasteful things and to stop spending more money than they have. Hard decisions need to be made. It is time for the age of responsibility in which everyone pays their debts and saves instead of spending, spending, spending. I know that it is part of the American dream to buy all of these great things, but that doesn’t work out very well if you can’t pay for what you purchased. I think that it is up to Obama, as our head of the nation, to call for more responsibility, as I don’t think many people will choose it unless they are asked to. It is up to him to call for it in our government as well. Too long has our government been complacent about accumulating debt and for too long it has done nothing about it. If anyone has the ability to create change, I think that Obama does, as I think he has a strong vision, which will enable him to guide others. Andrew Jackson was the only president to have finished his term with a national debt of zero. I know if my be a little unrealistic to get it to zero, but if no one every attempts to reduce the national debt, then it will never get done. So I hope that someone takes the lead on fiscal responsibility, whether it is Obama or a future president. Either way, it needs to be done.
Good post, Nick. In this post, you talk about Fannie and Freddie and lending practices, which I think are worth some consideration. If you look at the Clinton and G.W. Bush years, there was a big push to make monies available via lending to almost anyone so that they could buy a home. Well, that lending meant that money often went to people who could not reasonably afford to purchase the homes that they borrowed against; hence, our current economic crisis. While I believe that predatory lending and loans given to the less-than-qualified are ill-advised, there needs to be a balance to provide low income families or individuals with resources to acquire home. I don’t have ananswer to determine who should and shouldn’t qualify. All I am saying is that is lending is a very difficult issue and good policy is hard to create in that regard. The idea that “everyone should be able to borrow the money to buy home” is great and very American on the surface but very utopian and economically ill-advised upon deeper investigation.
By: mfeddes11 on December 7, 2009
at 7:54 am
You guys are both spot on. What scares me the most is that we seem to have built an economy that is based on lending– often unwise lending. And I’m not sure that this financial crisis has taught us a thing…
By: Andy on December 7, 2009
at 7:03 pm
With our national debt in the trillions, I think it is safe to say that we can’t blame or pin this issue on just one thing. There were a lot of reasons that our country went into this debt. But as you mentioned in your blog, it wasn’t just the national government, it is also the state and local. We need to be more conscientious on all levels. It may be partially Obama’s responsibility on the national level, however, I think that our state and local leaders need to be held accountable as well. I’m from California, it has one of the largest economies in the world, but is in terrible debt. My point is that we need to put pressure on our other leaders as well. It’s not just the lending, it’s the spending. Good Post!
By: aramey12 on December 8, 2009
at 4:25 am
I think you’re right Nick. We stand at the cross road right now. With our national deficit at the highest levels we have ever seen before, we come to the roadblock of asking what do we do now? Our administration has created this mentality that we need to spend our way out debt, but I think the damage is so significant its going to take more than what President Obama has proposed to try and bring down. Also being from Washington, I can see the issues of how state debt affects us on a local level. Our states has one of the highest levels of debts and it will take a lot of proposals to try and bring our state debt down. There does need to be a sense of more consciencious spending by our local and national governments. With this healthcare debate it only makes it more frightening to see how our national deficit will be affected. Lastly, you should look into this but Congress today has said that they are going to increase the debt ceiling to 1.8 trillion dollars. That’s a shocker you may also want to take into consideration.
By: mmccloskey11 on December 11, 2009
at 12:41 am