How Much Attention Should the Government Give the National Debt?

How Much Attention Should the Government Give the National Debt?
By: Ian Petoskey


People always want to know where their tax money goes, well roughly 70% of the countries taxes go towards social security(24%), medicare/medicaid(26%), and national defense(16%). Which means the last 30% is budgeted between eleven different categories and one of those categories happens to be interest in national debt. According to Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the current percent of government spending towards the national debt is 6%. The national debt is around
$20.7 trillion, while our GDP is only $19.8 trillion which means our gross debt to GDP ratio is 104.77%. Since the ratio is so high it’s not good for our national debt to be higher than the current GDP because we owe more than what we are making. Using the “US Debt Clock” we can trace back the GDP and the national debt. After tracing back the national debt never gets any smaller and continues to increase higher year after year. With the national debt going up year after year it seems the government has no interest on fully minimizing our national debt, so why not focus the money on other categories and not worry about our debt until we can pay it back. We could focus on other programs that need improvement more than others.

Since 2007, our nation’s debt consistently increases $1 trillion each year. The government keeps putting money towards our debt even though it’s not going down. “It's unlikely America will ever pay off its debt. It doesn’t need to while creditors remain confident they will be repaid. Most creditors don’t worry until the sovereign debt is more than 77 percent of GDP(Amadeo).” Although our sovereign debt is over 77% doesn’t mean we can’t expand or fix our issues, but it will take time. To think during World War II the debt was $260 million which was 14% more than the GDP but they had expanded in just three years, so the debt today will be canceled out by the future’s economic growth. Since the national debt can’t be paid off in one day, why not put it aside till the government improves other categories until it brings in more tax money for the government to be able to pay off the national debt. To improve other categories, the government could put the money invested in the national debt into other categories such as education, science, and medical research, or even invest more in the social security, medicare, and national defense. Why should we invest in a problem that can’t be fixed in a couple days, when we can expand our nation’s economy by improving the quality of life?

Works Cited

Amadeo, Kimberly. “3 Reasons Why the U.S. Debt Will Never Be Paid Off.” The Balance, www.thebalance.com/will-the-u-s-debt-ever-be-paid-off-3970473.

“National Debt of the United States.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Feb. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States.

“Policy Basics: Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go?” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 10 Oct. 2017, www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go.

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time, www.usdebtclock.org/index.html.