Our $12 trillion hole….and how to dig ourselves out of it

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Nov. 11, 2009

The national debt is like the dangerously over-stuffed closet in your hallway: you know that it’s about to explode, with potentially disastrous consequences, and yet as long as it’s out of sight it’s easy to ignore. The cumulative American debt is $12 trillion, and is projected to continue growing as we fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, continue to spend money to prop up our weak economy and continue to pay for huge entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. Patt talks with a panel of experts who will chart how we dug ourselves this huge hole and how we can dig ourselves out of it—and the risks of not acting now.

Also on this episode

Guests:

Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition

David Walker, former Comptroller General of the U.S.; president & CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation

Isabel Sawhill, senior fellow & co-director of the Center on Children & Families at Brookings Institution; former associate director of the Office of Management & Budget in the Clinton Administration

Andrew Biggs, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; former deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration in the Bush Administration

Kegan
2 months, 4 weeks ago

What about the massive subsidies the government gives to giant agribusinesses. Let's stop giving giant corporations a free ride.

rachael
2 months, 4 weeks ago

isn't the biggest problem that our wealth is concentrated among a very small percentage of the population and that the federal government has no control over the harm that corporations exact the the members of its population? the recent upturn of the dow while people are losing their jobs shows that regular people suffer while the rich amuse and enrich themselves by ruthlessly and flagrantly playing roulette with our future. can banks, insurance, and drug companies not be threatened with criminal negligence in the very least? as long as politicians get legal bribes in the form of lobbies, we are not a democratic society. we are owned by corporations.

Kegan
2 months, 4 weeks ago

Also, I haven't gotten anything fo 31 grand, I put myself through school, I don't have healthcare and I work full time. As soon as I get my Psy.D I'm immigrating to Norway.

michael from Orange
2 months, 4 weeks ago

I agree with all the commentators here. As to you most of your guest comments on the entitlement programs ( mostly for healthcare) - this may sound cruel but face it folks we will have to pull the plus on some grandmas an grandpas. One of my biggest problem is the two faced concervative Republicans always squaking about budget and not willing to face up to the AARP folks. It is going to be class warfare betwen the old & rich against the young & poor. By the way I am stuck in the middle age group.

DPaul
2 months, 4 weeks ago

One of your guests just suggested that we pay our active duty military less as an effort to decrease national debt. He said that the average military person gets paid $100,000 while the national income average is $50,000, numbers to which he did not give a source. I can't even express how ridiculous of a comment that was. Does the average person in the nation risk their life in a career on a day to day basis? Aside from local police and fire department employees, I'd say no. Even those military people who are not currently deployed know that they can be at any moment. In addition, military families constantly move from base to base, to fill the needs of military positions across the country. This uproots their families, and with active members who have working spouses this makes it incredibly difficult for their spouses to hold a steady job, which puts the entirety of the family's financial responsibility on the active duty member. Cutting active duty pay to decrease national debt is a ludicrous suggestion. And judging from the quickness of the guest to suggest that I doubt he has ever been a member or has had anyone in his family serve in the armed forces.

LolofromLA
2 months, 4 weeks ago

the exchanges during the program were excellent and very informative. why isn't more of that kind of useful information made available by mainstream media? it would help for more americans to be better informed.
also, no one ever mentions how social security became flush during the clinton administration economic boom and what ever happened to that?

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