http://voxday.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-washington-will-collapse.html

Instead of saying “I am the 99%”, I’m down on things today, and my saying today for America is: “We are the Greek”.   We’re no different from them, and we’ll be just as incapable of handling the catastrophe when it hits us.  I’m pessimistic.  Hopefully, it’s just a bad day, but today I’m extremely pessimistic about our future.
 

Danny, the future liabilities are there, but at least we are not committed to them yet – though I don’t see a way to avoid most of them in the future.  But our current debt is actually owned by somebody or other (foreign nations, the Fed, banks, etc), and they can and will get that money from us one way or another.  Future liabilities… we are not yet on the hook for.

I just read that our federal spending is 3.7 trillion, of which 0.5 trillion (500 billion) is interest payment on the current debt.  That’s only going to go up and up.  That currrent figure may not seem like much, but it’s  13.5%.  (0.5/3.7).   It’s one of our big ticket budget items, as follows:

$761 billion – Social Security
$468 billion – Medicare
$269 billion – Medicaid
$598 billion – Unemployment/Welfare
$679 billion – Department of Defense + Foreign Wars
$500 billion – Interest payments on the national debt
——————
Total: $3275 billion, or $3.3 trillion

If the budget was $3.7 trillion, then that leaves only $0.4 trillion for all other expenditures of our national government.
 
That $500 billion in interest payments is free money to whoever holds our debt, and it’s only going to get higher.  They, whoever they are, will be more than happy to keep receiving that free money forever into the future – they do *not* want us to reduce our debt.  As long as we don’t default, they’re thrilled. Free money!  From the taxpayers to them.

What are we getting in exchange for being allowed to have to spent all that debt money?  Look around you: False bubbles of prosperity that can’t be sustained, leaving us with the current economic mess.  Obama added 1.7 and 1.4 trillion in debt for 2009/2010, much of that in his “Stimulus”… but he didn’t even get a fake bubble of prosperity out of it!  Or may God help us if this is what “fake bubble of prosperity” looks like. 

So when we moan and groan about all the entitlements money going out to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment and Welfare (and even defense), don’t forget the recipients of the debt interest.  They’re getting their entitlements too.