I’ve spent some time this week looking at the national debt – which has topped $36 trillion with Congress looking to extend the debt ceiling by another $4 trillion. Read Wikipedia’s narrative here.
ABC News has a neat video from mid-2023, showing the history of the debt but, it’s badly out of date.
The U.S. Treasury Department posts a daily debt update – it shows the debt effective February 12, 2025, at $36,218,268,281,356. That’s $36.22 trillion.
There’s enough blame to go around. The ABC News graphic shows that the debt made a sharp upturn under George W. Bush – He did tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 – and led the U.S. into war after the 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda and later on his quest to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Barack Obama gave us the Affordable Care Act – ObamaCare. The original 10-year cost estimate, made in 2010, was $940 billion. In 2012, the Congressional Budget Office updated that amount to $1.8 trillion for the period between 2012-2022, offset in part by $510 billion in receipts and cost savings. By 2018, when the law is fully implemented, total expenses are estimated to be closer to $2.5 trillion.
And Donald Trump’s signature achievement was his tax cuts of 2017 – which are set to expire this year and he wants to renew.
The United States has always had debt (except for 1835-36 under Andrew Jackson). It just has never increased this fast or this high.
Getting this debt under control is the biggest issue facing the country. Pray for wise leaders and pay attention.
Monkey Trial lecture today at UT
Ed Larson
Pulitzer Prize winning historian Ed Larson will separate history from folklore in a lecture on the Scopes Monkey Trial. It’s set for 5:30-6:30 p.m. today (2/13/25) at the University of Tennessee Student Union, Room 262, 1502 Cumberland Ave.
The lecture is free and ties in with “Inherit the Wind,” a play about the trial, now underway at Clarence Brown Theatre.
You remember the storyline. A century ago in Dayton, Tennessee, two high-powered lawyers did battle in a misdemeanor trial brought under a new state law against teaching the theory of evolution in public schools.
Election Commission to start petitions
Individuals seeking to run for office in the 2025 City of Knoxville Municipal Elections can pick up a petition from the Knox County Election Commission beginning Monday, March 17, 2025. The offices on the ballot are: City Council, Districts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. Individuals that are elected to the above offices will begin a four-year term on Saturday, December 20, 2025. All the rules are online at knoxvotes.org.
I think we need a complete review of the ten years period where Barack ran up that 2.5 trillion in healthcare costs. For what? So people could get health insurance? Tax cuts for rich people are much more important.
Which should keep us awake at night the most: 1) A national credit card that we refuse to control, 2) A world that we have caused to despise/mistrust us; hence, no friends 3) no one to work our farms, hence reduced or unaffordable farm products, 4) No foreign markets for our manufactured or agriculture products and 5) Uncontrolled inflation with goods and services only produced in this country or if imported, subject to high tariffs? Prayers, indeed.
I’m glad we finally have someone looking into the wasteful spending that has been taking place in Washington for far too long. Both sides have contributed to it. Meanwhile, members of Congress make $155,000 a year and are multi-millionaires. Hmmm…
The cause of our debt problem is simple: too much spending. If government confined itself to the DOI statement of purpose, ‘..Governments are instituted among men to secure rights…” we would not this self-inflicted problem.