Letter to the Editor: National debt spiralling out of control, says reader

Our national debt has increased from $10.6 trillion to $16 trillion in 4 years. Each taxpayer owes more than $140,000 as their share of the debt. Not a person in any nation of the Euro zone owes as much as we do. Our national debt increased more in the last 4 years than it did in the previous 17 years. Thirty-two cents of every dollar our government spends is borrowed. We spent $479 billion on interest this year and that figure would have been larger except a lot of our debt is borrowed at low interest.

Last year our credit rating was lowered because we didn’t pass a budget on time. Interest is the fourth largest item in the federal budget behind Medicare-Medicaid, social security and the department of defense. The government accountability office predicts that interest on our national debt will be the largest item in our federal budget in the next decade.

If you imagine that your income is $30,000 per year and you spend $43,800 per year that is the same percentage or ratio our government is operating on.

You know that this cannot continue!

Gerald W. Ray

Spokane