Obama Panel Warns Governors: Debt Will Destroy US Like a Cancer
(MoneyNews.com) --
The heads of President Barack Obama's national debt commission painted a gloomy picture as the United States struggles to get its spending under control.
Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles told a meeting of the National Governors Association that everything needs to be considered — including curtailing popular tax breaks, such as the home mortgage deduction, and instituting a financial trigger mechanism for gaining Medicare coverage.
The nation's total federal debt next year is expected to exceed $14 trillion — about $47,000 for every U.S. resident.
"This debt is like a cancer," Bowles said Sunday in a sober presentation nonetheless lightened by humorous asides between him and Simpson. "It is truly going to destroy the country from within."
Simpson said the entirety of the nation's current discretionary spending is consumed by the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs.
"The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans, the whole rest of the discretionary budget, is being financed by China and other countries," said Simpson. China alone currently holds $920 billion in U.S. IOUs.
Bowles said if the U.S. makes no changes it will be spending $2 trillion by 2020 just for interest on the national debt...MORE...LINK
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