Why has America continued to be in so much debt? Well, our nation began its existence in debt after borrowing money to finance the Revolutionary War. The Revolutionary War had great finical effects on all who participated in the war. The United States was one of those combatants who participated in the war from April 19, 1775, to September 3, 1783. When the war was over the war reflected in a great amount of money which had to be paid for. The nation used many methods to pay for the war which included some of the methods we still use today. During this time, the president of the United States was Andrew Jackson, and he believed that debt was a “national curse” that would soon build up over time. Jackson’s main goal was to eliminate all of …show more content…
I believe that the reason behind all the debt is because of foreign aid and the debt of our own federal government. Foreign aid is the loaning of money, food, or other resources from another country. We owe about 5 trillion dollars to other countries and 6 trillion to our own federal government. Too much foreign aid is given to other countries and not repaid for. I think foreign aid needs to be abolished. We can help nations by sending them food, supplies, or physical help when needed, but we should not send them money when we can’t even pay back the debt we owe to ourselves. For an example, we were the largest contributor to Afghanistan when they needed help after a massive earthquake. Even though we helped them in a major way, they hate us now and have wanted to kill us. This should make the nation feel like we are disrespected and used but apparently it does not because we continue to send money to other countries. We give other countries money when we don’t have the money ourselves causing us to borrow more money which results in being in debt even more. Another reason why we should quit sending money is because we don’t know what the money is used for in another country. We send money with the intentions that the money will be used for the families in need or to solve the problem the country is having, but how do we truly know if that is what …show more content…
Because of compound interest, acting sooner means we can reduce debt to a sustainable level with a smaller amount of savings. For example, if we start now, we would need spending cuts and/or tax increases equaling 2.6 percent of the economy to bring the debt gradually down to historical levels in the next 25 years. Waiting 5 years, however, would require adjustments of 3.2 percent of GDP and waiting 10 years would require 4.2 percent. Achieving this will require a major plan that addresses the main contributors of our debt. Some ways we can reduce the spending would be to reform the tax code, slowing the growth of spending and reducing other spending, and helping to grow the economy. Other ways of helping would be to lower the spending for the military, higher interest rates, or raise credit card maximums. The nation could reduce so much debt if we just buy the things that are necessary for our nation and spend money