Fastest growing US export: interest on foreign debt?

[Winehole23]

Several days ago, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its preliminary analysis (http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12103) of the fiscal impact of the president’s FY2012 budget proposal. Its findings were not pretty. In no year between now and 2021 would deficits fall below 4 percent of GDP. Over the next decade, enacting the president’s proposal would create deficits totaling $9.5 trillion, $2.7 trillion more than the cumulative deficit in CBO’s baseline budget. Federal debt held by the public would double from $10.4 trillion to $20.8 trillion, 87 percent of GDP, and annual interest on the debt would rise from 1.4 percent of GDP to nearly 4 percent. Even if the share of the debt held by foreign investors and governments does not increase over the next decade, CBO’s projection suggests that we’ll be shipping fully 2 percent of our GDP (almost $500 billion) overseas each year by the end of the decade, just to pay the interest on foreign holdings of U.S. government debt.http://www.tnr.com/article/the-vital-center/85557/while-america-slept

via Political Calculations (http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/03/unusually-fast-growing-export.html)

[Marcus Bryant]

The middle class could put an end to this, but they're too busy bitching about being overtaxed and/or that the "Super Rich" don't pay enough so they don't have to pay for the federal governance they expect.

[coyotes_geek]

Cue boutons and/or dan with the "debt isn't really a problem" rhetoric........

[boutons_deux]

debt really isn't the problem

reduced tax revenues from Repugs tax cuts and bogus wars and the VRWC-driven Bankster's Great Depression is the problem.

[Marcus Bryant]

Strangely, none of the middle class is willing to pay higher taxes nor see non-military related expenditures reduced, so your mindless bitching is just that.

[Winehole23]

croutons might be part right: deficit financed tax cuts are one piece of the puzzle. It's his refusal to countenance entitlement reform that puts the lie to his supposed fiscal probity.

[Marcus Bryant]

They are, but the American public ethic is that someone else pays for what we want. We expect not to shoulder our fair share, but rather to profit.

[coyotes_geek]

debt really isn't the problem

reduced tax revenues from Repugs tax cuts and bogus wars and the VRWC-driven Bankster's Great Depression is the problem.

Debt is the problem. Higher taxes and reduced expenditures are the solution.

[Winehole23]

Debt is the problem. Higher taxes and reduced expenditures are the solution.Bingo.