Preview

Commentary on Ten Trillion and Counting

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
669 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Commentary on Ten Trillion and Counting
Commentary on “Ten Trillion and Counting” The video is a well demonstration of debt issues that the U.S. government faces. It starts with the tough economic condition that Obama inherited from Bush. Then, it talks about Bush’s centerpiece economic agenda: cut taxes, as well as the way Bush always put politics ahead of economics. After a serious of expenses related to two big wars; two enormous tax cuts; and a variety of new entitlement program signed by Bush had been spent, the economic began to go down. He not only squandered the entire budget surplus he had inherited, but started to confronting a stubborn recession and a steadily escalating budget deficit. Next, the video shows the bitterly partisan fight over Obama’s expensive economic recovery plan. The Republicans worried about if the plan goes well, they will get no credits for anything they have done. So they strongly disagree with this huge amount of recovery expenses. The main issue regarding of this plan is about reform healthcare in order to save money in the long run. However, it is difficult to persuade interest groups and politicians who have been battling over healthcare for a long time. Besides, it is especially tough to talk to Americans about the government are going to spend less on benefits in a recession time. In the end, this video talks about Obama’s budget, and the rigorous debt deficit condition that the U.S. is going through. The reason I think the “Ten Trillion and Counting” is a well explanation of the debt deficit is because I learned a lot from this video. Before I watched this video I have no idea about the serious debt deficit problem that the U.S. is facing right now. The only thing I realized from my personal experience is that the U.S. government has relaxed the policy regarding to the threshold of international student. Several years ago, it is not easy for Chinese student to go abroad. Which reflects that the U.S. government really wants to stimulate the economy by

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The U.S. national debt is currently $18 trillion dollars and it is rising fast. The national debt today is the highest compared to the past U.S. national debt. In George Washington’s Farewell Address, it declared to avoid going into debt and if the nation end up in a debt that it should pay off the debt so it doesn’t burden the future generation. Like all the other things in his Farewell Address, the nation didn’t listen to him. The ideal goal right now is to stop the debt from increasing anymore because it is impossible to stop the debt from increasing and paying off all the debt in this generation.…

    • 913 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    deficit should equal the change in the government’s real debt, not the change in the…

    • 2381 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The United States current economic status has improved from 2010 to 2012, as far as, unemployment rates, consumer income, and (lower) interest rates are concerned. When we examine the Gross Domestic Product, we are continuing to increase the United States debts. In 2009, the United States estimated GDP (purchasing power parity) was $14.38 trillion, which increased $0.44 trillion in 2010. From 2010, the GDP at $14.82 trillion increased $0.22 trillion, putting the U.S. at 15.04 trillion in debt (Stephanie Mandell, 2012).…

    • 1516 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The argument’s main idea is that the U.S. debt is continuing to increase, and the government needs to halt this growth. The author, Kimberly Amadeo, begins her argument by explaining that the U.S. debt is held by the American public and the governments of other countries. Our debt is the largest in the world, and is continuing to increase. The article also explains how the debt became so massive. Amadeo states that the debt is caused by an accumulation of Federal budget deficits and presidents borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund. Also, other countries keep lending money to the U.S. and set low interest rates, which benefits the Federal government. Finally, Congress keeps increasing the limit on the debt, thus allowing it to continue to grow. The author supports these reasons by using facts and statistics. The article is wrapped up by explaining that the economy may be thriving now, but soon the growing debt will cause a major crash.…

    • 314 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Are you interested in a plan to stop the growth of the Federal Debt? If so please review the 10 point TenOC plan below. If you like it (or even if you do not like it) forward it with your comments to your email buddies, facebook friends, your talk show host, your congressman, tweet about it, bog about it, post it on your websites, and you are free to send or copy it to anyone else you can think of. We need to start an ACTIVE conversation about this (or some other) plan to reduce the federal debt.…

    • 1050 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    $19.3 trillion dollars. That’s the national debt. And before I even say this number out loud it will probably have risen hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe even millions. The U.S has about $66 trillion dollars in overall debt and even for the most powerful country that’s got to knock you down a notch. Indeed the next President has an abundance of problems to solve, but to even think about solving them he has to find money, which with -$66 trillion dollars on his belt is about as easy a trying to escape a house of mirrors. At some point people have to start wondering “ How did we get here?”.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    National Debt Cons

    • 1527 Words
    • 7 Pages

    At 9:58 p.m. on April 13th, 2016 the nation debt clock rang in at about $19,243,130,456,985 dollars in debt; and growing. The government seems to try and lower the debt everyday but nothing seems to be working. Even before the United States of America became an official country, the national…

    • 1527 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    How high? The national debt is currently at $19 trillion and expanding daily. During Barack Obama’s inauguration day, the national debt exceeded $10 trillion. Obama inherited a broken economy with a frozen financial system, unemployment hitting double digits, a $455 billion deficit, a banking crisis, and massive layoffs. Simply put, there were not enough taxes to make up the federal government’s extravagant spending. Eight years earlier, Former President George W. Bush inherited a surplus and envisioned tax cuts for his presidency. These cuts exceeded $1 trillion over 10 years and were, mostly, to the wealthy. Since former President Ronald Reagan, Republicans institute a tax-cut approach to the economy. However, in the 1990s, Republican George…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Secondly, another way to reduce debt is to completely cut out all the useless spending. In a year, the government spends $2.6 million dollars to help “Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job.” (reference) Why waste money on prostitutes? Why does the American government care enough to help them? We could be putting that $2.6 million towards out national debt. It’s not much but anything and everything will help. The…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hanson’s piece takes a very extreme stance of looming disaster and society collapse for America as he writes using a negative thinking trap, appealing to fear. 3 The article capitalizes on America’s fear of unfunded…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Balanced Budget Amendment

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages

    As we discussed and read about this week in our class, the topic of the US Budget and how, why and what should we do about it has become a topic with many views and opinions. The United States of America currently holds over 16 Trillion dollars in debt based on our governments spending practices for the last ten years. Two wars, numerous fiscal collapses and cliffs, a bubble popped housing market, looming medical care costs from a socialized healthcare law and a recession have caused the government to acquire enormous amounts of debt. This debt with caused by what seems to be from irresponsible spending on both the Legislative and the Executive Branches have done nothing to lessen this deficit. One idea that has been discussed not only in Congress, but on prime time news networks is the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment. A Balance Budget Amendment (as recently seen in House Bill HJR2, 28 NOV 2011) would require that Congress balance its budget every fiscal year unless a three-fifths majority of both houses approved of maintaining a deficit[1]. In a CNN Poll, conducted by ORC International, 74% of Americans surveyed would be in favor of a constitutional amendment to require a Balanced federal budget. So, why did it miss passing by the House of Representatives 23 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed? In the graph we see that federal debt will remain above 73 percent of GDP, far higher than the the 39 percent seen over the last four decades as stated by the Congressional Budget Office. This level is of debt is unsustainable to the our economy and a Balanced Budget Amendment may be the answer to get wasteful spending under control and reduce out national debt.…

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Government shutdown 2013

    • 356 Words
    • 2 Pages

    For the first time in seventeen years the Republicans in Congress chose to shut down the federal government all because they didn’t like one law. One faction of one party in one house of congress in one branch of government shut down major branches of the government. The House and Senate could not agree on the Obamacare bill by September 30, 2013; thus resulting in the federal government shutdown. The shutdown “didn’t have to happen”, Obama proclaims as he addresses the issue of the economy also being affected as it was in the last shutdown, but this time they are still in the process of economical recovery. This does not mean that everybody who works for the federal government, but paychecks would be delayed, vital services that seniors and veterans, women and children, business and our economy will all be “hamstrung”. The President warns the public and Republicans of the real-life economic impacts of the shutdown, cautioning that specific office buildings would close and workers and their families would all be hurt greatly. House Republicans continue to insist they will not agree to a budget bill to keep the government operating without measures to delay or defund the president's signature health care legislation, something the Senate has repeatedly rejected. They refuse to fund the government unless they defund the affordable care act. They have demanded, “ransom just for doing their job” over an ideological crusade to deny health insurance to millions of Americans. The shutdown will without a doubt hurt the economy and services and benefits that Americans depend on must be put on hold and closed. Hundreds and thousands of civilian workers still on the job or staying at home aren’t being paid, even those with families to support; more families will be hurt and more businesses will be harmed. The longer the national shutdown continues, the worst the effects will be. Obama urges house republicans to reopen the government restart the services Americans depend on…

    • 356 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Health Care in America

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Many fear that a looming economic disaster will affect the health care system for the long term. Reed Abelson argues that the problem of unpaid medical bills is worsening the financial crisis: “Even as Washington and Wall Street debate the best way to avert an economic disaster, increasing numbers of Americans are struggling with another financial crisis: the growing burden of unpaid medical bills” (Abelson, 2008, 1). More employees are paying out of pocket fees for their medical…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    American people look at their insurance bills, co-pays and drug costs, and can't understand why they continue to increase. The insured should consider all of these reasons before getting upset. In 2004, employee health care premiums increased over 11 percent, four times more than the rate of inflation. In 2003, premiums rose 10.1 percent and in 2002 they rose 15 percent. Employee spending for coverage increased 126 percent between 2000 and 2004. Those increases were lower than expected. (National Coalition on Health Care, 2005, Facts on health care costs). Premiums have risen five times faster than workers wages, on average. If medical spending continues to rise by just two percent more than personal income, by 2040 Medicare and Medicaid would hit 18.5 percent of the gross domestic product, leading the federal deficit to be 20.7 of the gross domestic product. (Melcer, R., 2004, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Rising Costs of healthcare pose huge challenges).…

    • 1217 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Outrageous amounts of money are spent on healthcare reform. In the next ten years, Obamacare, a program that provides healthcare for all, is set to spend over $1.2 trillion (Federal Spending 1). This is more than double what is needed. Half of this should be cut and be used to start paying off the national debt. If this is done in one short term payment, the interest on the debt will shrink, saving a great deal of money every year. Similarly, Obamacare was a failure, less than half of expected users enrolled in the program. As a result, the program is ineffective and should lose funding. Political scientist George Will postulates that “...entitlements are the fastest growing personal income” (1). This proves that these programs should be cut. Many argue that this program is too beneficial to lose funding. This has been proven completely false as Obamacare initially had too few people sign up for the program to be effective (Will 1). In conclusion, healthcare programs should drastically lose funding. They are a major factor that leads to the growth of the national debt. If this program is cut, it will begin a period of economic success in the United…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays