Easiest Way to Explain the Seriousness of the Debt w/ Average Voter?

[DeadheadForPaul]

I find that Dr. Paul and his supporters often go into WAY too much detail when discussing issues. Honestly, when Dr. Paul talks, I think it's over the heads of 95% of the audience and goes beyond their attention span. Similarly, I feel like people's eyes glaze over when I speak for longer than a minute

Love it or hate it but we live in a soundbite world

I've realized that many of the Dems I know recognize the debt problem but think we can put it off "until Obama's recovery program kicks in"

What's the best (and nicest) way of briefly explaining why the debt must be addressed NOW rather than 10 years down the road (when the market recovers on its own in spite Obama's intervention)

I feel like we should create a handbook for "how to answer issues in 1 minute". Otherwise, we will ramble for 20 minutes on one issue and overwhelm the voter

[emazur]

Here it is in 1 line:
By 2040, nearly every dollar the government collects in taxes will be needed for Social Security, Medicare, and paying interest on the debt
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07983r.pdf

And that report was issued in 2007, before the bailouts, the stimulus, Obamacare, and a 3rd semi-war in Libya.

[nobody's_hero]

In about 2 or 3 years (if that long), they'll get all the explanation they can stand.

[gerryb]

I completely agree. All the detailed analysis in the word is overcome by a simple "yea, but..." if that's what the person believes.

My "soundbyte" about the debt is this:
If you break the $14 Trillion dollar debt out by the 105 million households in America, it means your household and every other will eventually have to pay back their share of $133,000. This does not even account for the Enron like accounting of Social Security and Medicare/cade benefits that have been promised, and are estimated at above $50 Trillion by the Comptroller of the Treasury. I'll let you do the math per household on that one.

I do the same for this years deficit: The government has spent an extra $1.8 Trillion, which is $17,000 per household above what it collects. Do you believe your household has used that many additional government services? If balanced it would "only" spend $19,000 for your household and this is only at the Federal level!

Tax increases on the wealthy: While I agree everyone should pay a "fair share", I believe wealthy individuals already do. The top 1% of earners pay for 25% of government services that everyone enjoys, The top 5% of earners pay for 50% of services, while this year 47% of Americans pay no income tax at all.

Increase taxes overall: If we maintained this years tax revenues with no changes at all, and adopted the same budget we used in the year 2000, we would have a balanced budget. Don't you agree we had enough government involvement in our lives the year 2000? AND, If we used the budget from 1990, we would actually pay off the debt eventually. Has your household experienced much improvement in the quality or quantity of services the federal government provides? Does anyone you know? (If so, then introduce libertarian and free market ideas... Most people I know can spend $20,000 per household better then the government, towards religious, environmental, non-profit, etc, organizations)

[tangent4ronpaul]

Hay bud, got a spare quarter of a million dollars? Uncle Sam needs you to pay up on the debt he's racked up on your credit card.

ok - it's not that much, it's ONLY 128 thousand per taxpayer right now. In 10 years with Obama's budget, it will be a quarter million.

[TheBlackPeterSchiff]

The govt taxes what it spends.

[TheNcredibleEgg]

How about:

Right now the debt is 14T - which is only manageable because of low interest rates. What's going to happen when interest rates rise again? For each 1% rise in interest rates - it will cost 140B extra per year from the budget. Once interest rates return to historic norms - that will cost 400B + more per year.

And, to think, just a month ago the gov't almost shut down over fighting 39B in cuts and the rhetoric out of Congress was that was too extreme. How will the 400B extra be paid for one day?

[Gumba of Liberty]

I find that Dr. Paul and his supporters often go into WAY too much detail when discussing issues. Honestly, when Dr. Paul talks, I think it's over the heads of 95% of the audience and goes beyond their attention span. Similarly, I feel like people's eyes glaze over when I speak for longer than a minute

Love it or hate it but we live in a soundbite world

I've realized that many of the Dems I know recognize the debt problem but think we can put it off "until Obama's recovery program kicks in"

What's the best (and nicest) way of briefly explaining why the debt must be addressed NOW rather than 10 years down the road (when the market recovers on its own in spite Obama's intervention)

I feel like we should create a handbook for "how to answer issues in 1 minute". Otherwise, we will ramble for 20 minutes on one issue and overwhelm the voter

The voters understand debt. Most of the have a boat load of it. The problem is more about understanding what a trillion is. Explain that a million seconds ago it was two weeks ago (12 days), that a billion seconds ago it was 1980 (31 years), that a trillion seconds ago the first **** sapiens were discovered in Europe (31,688 years).

Another way is to explain that our debt and obligations are larger than the World GDP so that if the World were taxed 100% (meaning the U.S. government took all of the worlds wealth) we would not be able to pay off the debt.

Its not about the debt. Its about the size of the debt.

[Zippyjuan]

The number is so big that people cannot comprehend it. So they don't concern themselves with it -particularly since they really can't do much about it. If they are personally in debt, that directly effects them. Government debt does not.

[gerryb]

I've been thinking about sending out a newsletter to my county with some of the above points and trying to recruit "tea party" minded people -- currently my county has no organization at all. I just don't know how to start a non-profit organization to qualify for subsidized postage... about 10 cents per household when sending it to every house.

[gerryb]

The number is so big that people cannot comprehend it. So they don't concern themselves with it -particularly since they really can't do much about it. If they are personally in debt, that directly effects them. Government debt does not.

Wrong. (on the second part, my first post addresses the first part) Government debt does/will effect the interest you pay on your own debt. Government debt has to be paid back by taxes (either direct, or inflationary tax). The dollar lost 17% of its value last year, which is why you might see increased prices at the grocery store or for your energy or transportation bills and this can be directly attributed to our large national debt and continued deficit spending.

[nayjevin]

If I ran a business like the federal government runs its budget I'd be broke or in jail.

[nayjevin]

Families used to get by on one family member working one job. Not anymore!

One U.S. dollar used to by several gallons of gas. Not anymore!

It's only going to get worse because both parties are offering the same 'solutions' they always have - print more money, which causes inflation and means we can't buy as much with the same dollar.

Only Ron Paul understands this!

[DeadheadForPaul]

In about 2 or 3 years (if that long), they'll get all the explanation they can stand.

Wish you were wrong

[DeadheadForPaul]

The voters understand debt. Most of the have a boat load of it. The problem is more about understanding what a trillion is. Explain that a million seconds ago it was two weeks ago (12 days), that a billion seconds ago it was 1980 (31 years), that a trillion seconds ago the first **** sapiens were discovered in Europe (31,688 years).

Another way is to explain that our debt and obligations are larger than the World GDP so that if the World were taxed 100% (meaning the U.S. government took all of the worlds wealth) we would not be able to pay off the debt.

Its not about the debt. Its about the size of the debt.

Damn - like those explanations. Good ones that the average person can wrap their head around

[tangent4ronpaul]

OK, lets put the debt in perspective... if you took 1 Trillion one dollar bills and laid them out end to end, it would go to the moon and back 300 times. It took the Apollo 11 crew ~6 days to travel to the moon and back traveling at an average speed of 2,000 mph. We are 14.6 trillion in debt. doing the math, if one were to travel at 2,000 mph it would take 72 years to travel from one end of the debt to the other.

[gerryb]

OK, lets put the debt in perspective... if you took 1 Trillion one dollar bills and laid them out end to end, it would go to the moon and back 300 times. It took the Apollo 11 crew ~6 days to travel to the moon and back traveling at an average speed of 2,000 mph. We are 14.6 trillion in debt. doing the math, if one were to travel at 2,000 mph it would take 72 years to travel from one end of the debt to the other.

These are neat stats, but what does it mean to me? It's still very abstract.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Post 5 isn't very abstract.

[Zippyjuan]

Wrong. (on the second part, my first post addresses the first part) Government debt does/will effect the interest you pay on your own debt. Government debt has to be paid back by taxes (either direct, or inflationary tax). The dollar lost 17% of its value last year, which is why you might see increased prices at the grocery store or for your energy or transportation bills and this can be directly attributed to our large national debt and continued deficit spending.
It impacts them indirectly- they don't see those costs since they are hidden in things. The country has been in debt for the entire lifetime of every living person so it is nothing new. Now if you had a direct "debt tax" you were sent a bill for every month, that would be a direct impact and people would be much more aware.

[Ray]

http://www.usdebtclock.org pretty much does it for anyone

[Endgame]

People don't understand debt in their own lives. They spend every last bit of credit that is available to them at any given moment and pay things off as slowly as their creditors allow.

[gerryb]

It impacts them indirectly- they don't see those costs since they are hidden in things. The country has been in debt for the entire lifetime of every living person so it is nothing new. Now if you had a direct "debt tax" you were sent a bill for every month, that would be a direct impact and people would be much more aware.

True, I think that's why it is important for us to try and tie/link the debt/deficit to things people see and complain about every day. The gov't and media will never do anything to link the issues with their adverse effects. While we have been in debt for most everyones lifetime, the debt has never been as large as it is now, due to the acceleration over Bush/Obama's terms. It truly is staggering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
Look at the table titled "Recent additions to U.S. public debt" "total debt" and "% of GDP column". There is another wiki about the deficit that went back 50 or 100 years and it was really good, I'll try to find that as well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
look at "Total outlays in recent budget submissions"

[gerryb]

People don't understand debt in their own lives. They spend every last bit of credit that is available to them at any given moment and pay things off as slowly as their creditors allow.

This is the #1 problem, I suspect. Public education does nothing to teach basic accounting, or the importance of compound interest.

[Mini-Me]

The voters understand debt. Most of the have a boat load of it. The problem is more about understanding what a trillion is. Explain that a million seconds ago it was two weeks ago (12 days), that a billion seconds ago it was 1980 (31 years), that a trillion seconds ago the first **** sapiens were discovered in Europe (31,688 years).

Another way is to explain that our debt and obligations are larger than the World GDP so that if the World were taxed 100% (meaning the U.S. government took all of the worlds wealth) we would not be able to pay off the debt.

Its not about the debt. Its about the size of the debt.

I want to correct a misconception here: Just because the debt exceeds GDP, that does NOT by itself mean it's unpayable. They are measured on different timescales. The GDP measures annual economic output, whereas the debt does NOT have to be paid off in a single year. To give a rough analogy, let's say you make $60000 a year, and your home mortgage is for $180000. Your debt is triple your income, but the mortgage is for 30 years, so you're not actually overextended. Of course, the US government doesn't actually take in the whole GDP every year in taxes, and if it did, there wouldn't be an economy at all. :p My analogy isn't meant to be perfect, just to illustrate that the debt to GDP ratio does not directly provide the point of no return.

To find the true point of no return, we should instead compare GDP or annual tax receipts with our total annual interest payments on the debt. The interest compounds (not sure if it's calculated with an annual/monthly/continuous formula), and the interest we pay is the amount it takes just to break even (i.e. keep our total debt the same from year to year, given no additional borrowing or payments on the principal). Once the interest on the debt exceeds the tax receipts - i.e. we'd have to spend ALL of our tax money just to break even on interest, without making any forward progress - then we're pretty much screwed even at 0% spending levels. The government could technically increase taxes to postpone the point of no return, so you can compare GDP to annual interest payments to find the upper bound on the point of no return (barring an unprecedented jump in GDP*). Since the economy shrinks the more the government taxes, there will come a point where increasing the tax rate further only decreases government revenue, meaning the real point of no return is when the interest payments alone are somewhere between the current tax receipts and GDP.

That said, all of that is assuming ZERO additional government spending. As of today, the debt is still mathematically possible to pay off, but ONLY if additional annual spending is cut by enormous levels, to a small fraction of its current levels. In reality, politicians are incapable of making a mere 1% cut, and they're making closer to a 0.01% cut and acting like it's a groundbreaking agreement, so there's simply no way we'll ever pay it off. The window of opportunity is rapidly closing too, because we're adding to the debt every day at an accelerating rate, which is making the interest payments explode over time.

For reference, here's some information about interest payments on the debt:
http://treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm
Nowadays, these payments - required just to break even on the existing interest - are roughly a third of tax receipts, and rapidly increasing.

*Although they're gravely misguided, this may be why a lot of people don't take the debt seriously (aside from gross misconceptions about how much tax revenues can be increased, and gross misconceptions about the magnitude of necessary cuts). They're hoping that if the government spends enough money on research, magical new technologies will create an unprecedented jump in GDP, and the debt will all of a sudden be magically tractable. The problem is, it's difficult to explain to a "magically thinking" person why this is such a TOTALLY unreasonable expectation...except maybe to point out that they've already been waiting for this for decades, and the window of opportunity is quickly closing.

[PreDeadMan]

i'ev always wondered from a moral stand point why the fuck is it my problem when an agency called the government gets into debt.... lol why is it my responsibility and everyone elses responsibility who are the tax cattle to have to pay off debt that this silly agency that rules over us got into in the first place....

[Teaser Rate]

The number is so big that people cannot comprehend it. So they don't concern themselves with it -particularly since they really can't do much about it. If they are personally in debt, that directly effects them. Government debt does not.

This sums it up perfectly.

+rep

[Matthew Zak]

The facts will go straight over people's heads if we don't "dramatize" or "sensationalize" it. Maybe a good way to go about it would be to say something like this:

"I'm standing on the deck of the Titanic warning people about possible icebergs. Well I see our iceberg and I can prove it, if you give me a minute."

Then find a quick and easily digestible way to explain what is happening.

I don't know...

[ssantoro]

Maybe this will help.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3QkDne_Kzg

[nayjevin]

Maybe this will help.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3QkDne_Kzg

Speakers blown @ 2:00