Your share of the national debt is now $1.1 million

[CaseyJones]

http://rare.us/story/your-share-of-the-national-debt-is-now-1-1-million/


Each U.S. taxpayer now has a federal-debt liability of $1.1 million, and rising.

Remember that when President Obama boasts that the federal deficit—the shortfall between annual revenues and spending—is declining. Of course, the primary reason for the decline is the sequester, which was his idea but now adamantly opposes.

The public tends to focus on the total national debt, which just passed the $17 trillion mark—up from $10.6 trillion when President Obama took office. But that figure pales in comparison to the federal government’s long term unfunded liabilities—money the government is obligated to pay over and above the revenues it is estimated to receive.

According to the U.S. Debt Clock, total long term unfunded liabilities are at $126 trillion, a $1.1 million liability for each U.S. taxpayer.

[DamianTV]

Will they take a Check?

[aGameOfThrones]

We are all millionaires now

[Zippyjuan]

How are they calculating "unfinded liabilities"?

[DamianTV]

How are they calculating "unfinded liabilities"?

Probably by taking Funded Liabilities and using those Funds for something completely unrelated, thereby blowing the funding for said programs and making them unfunded.

Blowing Rent money on Booze and Hookers does not get the bills paid.

Not only are they corrupt, they've corrupted their own views of Priorities where Hookers and other selfish shit are higher on the list than the services rendered. They will do things like introduce a Gasoline Tax, then use it all to fund a Study on how people that ate Carrots over 200 years ago are now dead. Then, they claim they need to put a Black Box in your car because the Road Systems are unfunded.

The Services that are caluclated to have a higher priority (Study on Carrots) are paid before putting that tax money that was collected towards the services which those taxes were collected to fund in the first place.

[Zippyjuan]

One look: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/is-our-debt-burden-really-100-trillion/265644/

In part, it is a "guestimate" at 75 years into the future. Five year projections on government spending are usually wrong.


Wanna scare somebody about America's debt on the eve of the Fiscal Cliff? I mean, really scare somebody? Here's a trick. Don't talk about the debt. Talk about "unfunded liabilities."

The U.S. national debt comes out to about $16 trillion today. That's something. But it's nothing compared to the extra $87 trillion in unfunded liabilities to Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions. Here's how that works. If you add up all of the U.S. government's promises to pay retirement and health care benefits for the next 75 years and subtract the projected tax revenue dedicated to those programs over the next 75 years, there is a gap. A $87 trillion gap -- in addition to a $16 billion hole.

"Why haven't Americans heard about the titanic $86.8 trillion liability from these programs?" Chris Box and Bill Archer ask in the Wall Street Journal. The authors blame the U.S. government for using shoddy accounting and for misleading the American public on their finances. In fact, the most misleading thing about that $87 trillion is the way the figure is often used in the media.


(1) That's not our debt. Our $16 trillion in debt and our $87 trillion in "unfunded liabilities" represent two very different ideas: real past promises and projected future promises. Real past promises are, well, very real. We have to pay back our debt. Failing to do it would be an illegal and disastrous default. Unfunded liabilities are future promises, and, since they're not as real, we can change them whenever we want without destroying ourselves. For example, raising the taxable income ceiling and slowing the growth of benefits could reduce the Social Security gap to zero tomorrow.

And that's if there is a Social Security "gap" to begin with. Technically, it's not legal for Social Security to have "unfunded liabilities" since it can only pay as many benefits as it receives in earmarked taxes. Both it and Medicare hospital insurance are prohibited from spending money they haven't collected from specific revenue dedicated to their programs (i.e.: payroll taxes). It is impossible for either to technically be "unfunded", since they cannot legally outspend their funding.


(2) 75-year projections are scarier than they are informative. Seventy-five-year projections always sound gargantuan because, well, they're calculated over three-quarters of a century, which is an awfully long time to count anything. But here's the flip side: In 75 years, our economy will be massive. Growing slowly at a 2% annual average, our GDP would be $66 trillion in today's dollars in 2087. That's an incomprehensibly big number, too. Once you run out any number over 75 years, the mind starts to boggle. That's good for scaring people with mind-boggling numbers, but it's not so good for informing. When Republicans say unfunded liabilities come out to $520,000 per U.S. household, they're taking a figure from 2087 and dividing it over a 2012 population to exaggerate. Scary, to be sure, but not very informative.


(3) Projections can change fast. An unfunded liability is a projection, and projections shift all the time for two big reasons: (1) Circumstances change and (2) laws change. Let's take circumstances first: The shortfall in Medicare and Social Security is exquisitely sensitive to just about every demographic trend you can imagine, including longevity, immigration, income growth, and birth rates. Furthermore, it assumes that seven decades of innovation will do nothing to change the rate of health care inflation, which is a brave assumption. We know next to nothing about how medical inflation will change after this decade. The fact that actuaries pretend to know the future doesn't make them oracles. It just makes them dutiful actuaries.

[enhanced_deficit]

Can't put price tag on freedom.

Incidentally, that number is about half of what a US soldier in Afghanistan costs per year lately to tax payers.

[DamianTV]

Um, almost paid in full?

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Wizard-of-Oz-Million-Dollar-Bill-PLUS-HOLDER-Fake-Novelty-Funny-Money-/00/s/ODA2WDkwMA==/$%28KGrHqR,!jQE68o5+uJ1BP!5nd1+C!~~60_35.JPG

(I just can't help but to be completely full of shit in this thread...)