Yes, But . . .

Continuing on with the national debt issue, one thing you always here about is 'deficit reduction', and it's usually in a context that would suggest that deficit reduction should be our primary focus.

Yes, but . . . what about the national debt? Reducing the amount of the deficit sounds sorta good, but it misses the point: Unless you eliminate the deficit, by either cutting spending or increasing revenue through higher taxes, tarriffs, fees, etc., or both, we're still not living within our means. We're still getting deeper in debt, albeit at a slower rate. We've still have a nearly $15 trillion national debt.

I've posted this before: How much is $15 trillion? Well, if you managed to blow $1 million a day every single day since Christ was born, you'd finally spend $1 trillion sometime in the mid-28th century. And at that same rate, you'd finally spend the whole $15 trillion sometime around the year 43,000.

Even if we somehow trimmed the federal budget and raised taxes enough to generate a $100 billion/yr surplus, it would still take 150 years to pay off $15 trillion.

Yes, but . . . does paying off that debt matter?

If you've ever been unfortunate (or stupid) enough to fall for some of those 'payday' loan places, you'll know all about how they just love for you to pay off just the interest and 'refinance' your loan(s); sometimes they call it 'renewing' your loan. Either way, you just pay a "small" fee--usually the interest (at up to 240% APR) and they quit hounding you--for now. Until next week when your loan is due again. But the big thing for them is that they get another round of interest from you all over again. And again. And again. And again.

If we're not paying off the debt, we're just refinancing. Now, the US government has been one of the most 'credit-worthy' countries in the world for a long, long time, so we're not having to pay out 240% interest. But the principle still applies. If you don't pay off the debt, it never goes away. You never get out of debt. You just keep throwing money away on the interest.

I know. I've been there. I hate those payday loan places. And it's not a good place for our country to be.