by Yannick Dyer

Created on: June 23, 2008

The national debt is a microcosm of the United States' sliding global position. As a country that in the past century has been deemed the world's most powerful nation, we must pay more attention to deficit as other developing nations around the world create their own surplus.

In the year 2000, President Clinton made a large payment of $216 billion towards the deficit. This still holds the record of being the largest payment to the deficit even today, 7 years after he left office. Instead of the projected total payoff initially intended for 2013, we are now at the cusp of reaching a $10 trillion national debt, which was merely $5.7 trillion in 2000. This means that our country's overdraft has increased nearly 40 percent since President Bush entered office.

Now I have never been a fan of numbers and mathematics, but these staggering figures have caused me to study this subject even further. Imagine in a nation with a population of 304 million people, that when a baby is born, it is born with a debt of $31,000. That's right, it would take that exact amount paid from all inhabitants of the U.S. to clear this problem. It is truly hard to picture a prosperous economy in the future with this current debt. Doesn't it feel as if all the politicians are turning their backs and ignoring the growing deficit? Any person with common sense would subscribe to that theory, however they should know that this is not the case.

Several politicians, who for the most part are Democrats, have been pushing for this issue to be addressed. Since the Democrats won the majority of seats in the House of Representatives in 2006, there has been more activity in the discussion of national debt. It is not hard to realize that the majority of politicians, and Americans for that matter, have been sidetracked on the issue of war over the past 5 years. So when the nation elects a new president this year, that man must bear the heavy burden of fixing this issue. It will not be easy, as a new bill was recently passed by the Senate to fund wars. This will add another $165 billion slash to the economy.

Our priorities as citizens of this nation rest on our immediate responsibilities and surroundings. However, we do have an impact on several issues in Washington that, at the moment, seem out of our control. It is very beneficial and important to elect whoever you feel represents change from the current Administration and state of our economy. Our income rarely increases but the outcome depends on us.

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