Friday, May 20, 2011

National Debt Pay-Off

If you’ve had your ear tuned into the news lately, I’m sure you’ve heard that the nation’s debt is on the verge of maxing-out. In other words, we’re about to default on some loans unless we get tricky with the books.

Everyone knows there are two ways to reduce debt: cut spending and/or pay it off. Naturally this triggers a debate on how exactly does one United States of America do this? Who gets the pay cut? Who gets cut-off? Who pays?

My initial thought was to work together. Let’s instigate a national one-time, flat-rate tax. Everyone over the age of 18 pays $5, one time. $5 is doable. $5 is a pizza at Little Creasers, three-hot dogs at Costco, five RedBox movies – surely it’s not too much to ask?! I decided to do the math to see how brilliant my plan was. Vote for me! I’ll reduce the nation’s debt!

SCREEEEEEEEEECH! (This is when my enthusiasm came to a screeching halt…) As it turns out, my piddly $5 per person doesn’t even make a dent! My $5 plan reduces our debt by 0.01%… What the?! It’s not until each person pays $1,000 that we pass the 1% threshold. And the magic number each person can contribute to bail the country from its financial burdens is $57,405. That means a total of $114,810 for my household of two.


US Total Debt: $14,300,000,000,000
US Total Population: 311,383,748
Estimated US Population 18 years + (80%): 249,106,998

After all is said and done, I have decided that I will not be giving the United States of America 57,405 of my dollars to rescue them from the chains of debt. Instead I will offer my two-cents of advice: stop spending money!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fabulous funny! I laughed right out loud. I do not want/do not have to give $57,000+ to ourselves--the government to get us out of debt. I need to get my own self out of debt!

Love ya!
Momma

AJ said...

You're funny and smart. Oh, America, what are we going to do? I really love our country but am fearful of our current situation.