National Debt

I read an article in The Los Angeles Times about the national debt in the US. We are currently $9 trillion in debt. The primary causes are expenses towards the war and healthcare. The writer states “Longtime budget analysts, however, have seen this problem coming for years, even decades. They cite two primary factors: healthcare costs that have been growing faster than the economy since the birth of Medicare and Medicaid, and the looming conversion of a generation of wage-earning baby boomers into Social Security beneficiaries.”After World War II, there were masses of people born: the baby boomer generation. This is putting a major strain on the budget because there are more people than money. In the past, more money was coming into Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. However, these days the government has to pay out more than what’s coming in. It’s an even worse recession because tax revenue is much less. The article also states, “That's the main reason the anticipated deficits add up to such headline-grabbing numbers. Yet even though the economy will come back to life, the bailouts and stimulus programs will end and tax revenue will rebound, the long-term picture isn't pretty.” The government needs to start cutting back because they are spending money we don’t have. This is an important article for citizens to read because it is a major concern for our future.