A few days ago I posted some charts on the growing national debt over the last 20 years and what is projected in President Obama's budget. The chart to the right reflects the national debt per person, all 300 million of us and our personal piece of the debt. Every child being born inherits his/her own piece of the debt, about $34,000 each.
What becomes worrisome when viewing this chart is the fact that the trend is moving beyond the exponential point of inflection and is becoming linear UP. Might this be what the stock market is worried about?
To keep things in perspective though, the data above has been restated in today's dollars. However, this only reveals WW2 and some of the surpluses during the Clinton Whitehouse. The trend in the proposed budget is not quite as steep when expressed in constant dollars, but it is still showing an expectation of rapid growth of the debt relative to the minor growth of the population. It took the past 20 years for the debt per person to double, but Obama is projecting the doubling to occur in a little over the next ten years.
Questions:
- What say do our children and grandchildren have in the burden we are leaving them?
- How much debt is "too much?" How will we know before it is too late?
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