Our debt right now is about $16.5 trillion.
Projections of the current budget and extrapolations of the administration’s programs bring the debt to $20 trillion in five years. This assumes the GDP remains at 4% or better, inflation stays at or below 2%, and unemployment drops to 7% in 2 years and trends steadily down after that.
Current Obligations
Social Security is now paying out more in benefits than it receives. Medicare’s hospital expenses program is also in the red now. The entire Medicare program will be depleted in four years.
Current estimates of Obamacare over ten years are a cost of $800 billion and a savings of $500 billion, i.e. the Medicare cuts promised in the bill – which is highly unlikely. Thus, Obamacare will cost $100 billion a year for the ten year time horizon. This does not included 400 additional programs within the Health Care bill that have not yet been created or funded.
Infrastructure
The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the nations roads, bridges, dams, schools, and water supply a grade of “D.” It will take $2.2 trillion to bring this up to a safe “B” grade.
The administration’s ambitious plans for solar, wind, and other alternate energy sources will require a $1.5 trillion upgrade of the nation’s electrical power grid. A part of this is the installation of “smart meters” for residential customers, to encourage energy conservation. These “smart meters” will double every residential electric bill because they charge for usage as well as peak demand.
Major New Programs
Estimates for the annual cost of immigration reform range from $100 billion to $250 billion. Cap and Trade will cost anywhere from $100 to $300 billion a year over the next ten years.
Action Items
In the long-range consideration of the national debt, infrastructure expenditures should not be handled as “agenda items” but should be put in the column of the “current debt.”
All other major programs must be considered on the basis of what they cost, rather than whether they are morally or socially right. Congress needs to consider bipartisan solutions that do not meet either party’s wishes completely.
“Comprehensive” immigration reform is hugely expensive – securing the borders far less so. Likewise, European-style “Cap and Trade” is hugely expensive, using low-tech solutions to trap CO2 like planting trees accomplishes 85% as much at 1% of the total cost.
