Two points of silver linings in this godawful mess of debt – Thank you for posting the numbers – they are a great help:
1. The debt is growing at a progressively slower rate. Federal debt increased a massive 19% in 2009 over 2008. The increase in subsequent years are 13%, 10%, 11% and 7% respectively. Debt held by Public is also increasing at a slower rate every year since 2008. The growth in 2009 through 2013 is 28%, 21%, 4%, 14% and 9% respectively.

I am not underplaying the severity of the situation – any growth rate in too much in the current state – especially when each of the rates above is higher than the GDP growth rate – so the debt to GDP ratio continues growing unabated.

2. The debt held by the Fed Reserve – is it because of the bond purchase programs? If yes, then this is more like a mortgage – they have some security backing that debt so its not a complete loss. When they will sell those bonds, they will recover part of this money. Although it is likely that they will take losses since a higher interest rate at the time of selling would mean lower bond prices.

As far as Detroit is concerned, I have lived in Michigan for a while and have seen Detroit up close (in its comparatively better days if you can believe it) – and I am not sure whether there is any solution. People will just keep leaving the city and it will die a natural death by attrition, I guess.

Yes, in Bell, CA you could easily be in favor of less spending and better services. Corruption can do that for you.

The corruption in Bell was especially blatant but it’s my contention that public sector unions have made the government corrupt in every state that allows them.

It’s especially bad in CA where there is no effective state republican party for statutory reasons and candidates for all local offices are funded by one union or another.

Here, it’s a common practice for a government worker to ‘retire’ from one agency, get a pension of 90% of his salary, which is inflated in the last year to drive up the pension; and then go get another six figure job at another government agency.

The sick thing is that we have Lean 6-Sigma Black Belts, Green Belts and probably even Pink Belts crawling all over the USG right now. They become just one more bum on the plush.

You know Repair Man…this whole government, Federal, State and Local needs to go to Al Anon. Keep feeding the addict and they will always have their hands out.

Give them a purpose, a priority, wherein they “contribute” and are paid, as agreed by citizenry, and it’s a win/win.

I don’t necessarily think teachers make to much money or that other local public employees make to much money, depending on where they live/cost of living.

There’s two different issues here.

1) The bureaucrat nature of government and how much spending is wasted on worthless overhead.

2) The pay of public sector employees.

In my example of public schools, more than 2/3 of the money spent is on overhead, And I’ve never had anyone provide an answer for what value is derived from that overhead spending. Of the remaining 1/3 only a portion goes directly to the teachers salaries.

Even so, in CA and every other large state that I’m aware of, the average cost of employing teachers is in the six figure range when health and pension benefits are included. Most people have no idea of the actual cost of employing public sector workers.

The solution is too change the way that government works and the scope of what it attempts to do.

Here’s a humorous essay regarding the value – cost of CA’s public schools; keep in mind that the dollars quoted in the article have almost doubled in the short time since it was written.

http://mcclintock.house.gov/senate-archive/article_detail.asp?PID=292

It depends on what you are trying to buy. A rare skill-set also has to be effectively put to use or it atrophies regardless of salary. One way to skin this cat is to look really hard at tooth-to-tail ratios in most govt. departments.

I think part of the larger issue is that the nature of much of the populace has been to “look to government” to solve every issue under the sun. “The government should take care of this” is so early in the average decision tree, and there are plenty of politicians who play to that tendency and tell the voter government can fix this if you just elect me.

So we get vast bureaucracies at federal and state levels slicing the same or similar public issues into onion skins so that dozens of different agencies, bureaus, and departments can all work at solving problem X, and each one has an office full of people to work at justifying their existence to solve problem X. And if a future politician shows up and wants to cut one of these departments, even in the name of consolidation and efficiency, well then they just don’t care about problem X!

I’m not proposing a solution — other than to say we need to market our ideas in a way that makes cutting government just as attractive to low-information-voters as it does the average Democrat snake oil salesperson.

The average voter in the middle easily accepts “government can fix this” and we need to sell an alternate vision that this CAN be fixed with less government interference and meddling. If that was an easy target to hit, we’d have scores of candidates running on that vision.

I actually think Gonzalo Lira is partially wrong. I believe overspending is the norm not the exception. There is a large group of people in this country who operate their personal finances much the same way we operate the government. That is, they spend more than they make, continually roll over credit, and optimistically hope for a future where they make every increasing sums of money to keep up their spending. Only when the creditors shut them down, foreclose on the house, and drive them into bankruptcy does the spending stop.
All governments are doomed because people, by their natures, are not responsible. This is why I say that liberal social beliefs always lead to liberal fiscal policies. Biblical, conservative values teach, reward, and punish according to a strong system of personal responsibility. As liberal policies and laws break down these values and their corresponding restraints on human behavior, the fiscal policy follows thereafter.

To resolve this problem, we need to overcome three huge obstacles: (1) many people who favor reducing spending in the abstract care more about retaining their own sliver of the government pie than they do about reducing the cost of everyone else’s; (2) people don’t realize how much government is spending on the programs they like. I expect that most Americans would be shocked if they learned the per-recipient cost of programs like public schools or Medicaire; and (3) many of the larger programs have gotten people dependent upon them and/or crowded out private alternatives so that people can no longer visualize how we could do without them.

On the Front Page of The Detroit News dated yesterday [2/21] the article encompassing the entire page tells us that 47% of all taxpaying properties in the year 2011 did not pay-up.
That in said year, $246.5 Million dollars went uncollected, half earmarked to Detroit and half to other local entities, including Wayne County and Detroit public schools.
The page includes a really colorful map outlining where the non-payers seem to be concentrated. It’s kinda stunning , really…..
Reading inside on pages 12- and 13-A gives me the spooky feeling that ‘this ain’t good’…..

A few years ago when ‘our fair city’s’ dfficulties first started becoming super-apparent, a map appeared illustrating Detroit’s area
[140 square miles] compared to other cities.
You can put Boston, San Francisco and the Borough of Queens,all inside Detroit’s borders and have room left over.
Let’s just call it ‘vast’ and go from there.
As far as bulldozing entire areas, Pulte Homes is doing just that on a trial basis with private foundation’s funding.
When it started up not too long ago, they did not even want to be indentified. But, by the time the area was demoed,spoil hauled-out , filled and graded , all was revealed and the sight of the expanse spoke for itself.
Now,…. this M O just might spread and it cannot come too soon.

That’s what Gulianni did in NYC. Cleaning up street crime has a cultural and economic value that no one has really quantified well. But the difference Rudy G. made in New York was obvious.