Today, our national leaders, and all of the rest of us, are expecting to learn the possible fate of some painful suggestions about what to do about our national debt.
That’s because an 18-member bipartisan federal government commission headed by Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson is expected to vote on a proposal to lower the debt. If 14 of the members approve the plan, it will go to Congress for consideration.
In a nutshell, here’s the problem:
“We, the people,” of the United States owe a debt of nearly $14 trillion, on which we must pay interest of some $400 billion each year. Meanwhile, our budgets call for too much red-ink spending, and our economy is in crisis.
The proposed “solution,” or at a minimum, “alleviation,” would involve raising some taxes and cutting some spending.