![]() ![]() Social Security is the largest of these intergovernmental creditors, having lent about $2.9 trillion. Treasury and received bonds, or IOUs, that it placed in trust funds. Social Security didn't put this cash in a vault somewhere. That's because, while income taxes have been slashed since the 1980s, payroll taxes earmarked to fund programs such as Social Security and Medicare have increased, collecting more than they needed in advance of the retirement of baby boomers. Making the debt issue more complex is that just over a quarter of it, $5.53 trillion, is money the government owes itself. "It's just that the conservative party feels guilty when they do it." ![]() ![]() "The problem is, both parties want to spend," he said. Kasich fears what will happen when interest rates rise from historic lows. He's in a long line of Ohioans from both parties who have tried to rein in the debt. John Kasich, who stood with Viard next to the clock that day and continues to travel the country trying to find five more states needed to force a constitutional balanced-budget amendment. The debt is more than an economic issue "it's a moral issue," said Gov. "Unfortunately, there's no magic number that you can say, 'If you're over that, it's curtains,' and that makes it difficult for people to get excited about it." "At some point, you can't finance it," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, the group that put that debt clock on the Statehouse lawn 21 years ago. Only once has it been higher than today: during World War II, when the nation's economy was transformed to defeat the Axis powers. ![]() In 1981, it was barely 30 percent of GDP. When measured against the nation's expanding gross domestic product, or total annual economic output, the debt was about 105 percent of GDP in the third quarter of last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. If it did occur, something would have to be done." "Obviously, that combination spells large trouble for the debt," Viard said. It's a big number, and it's likely to continue to grow under President Donald Trump, who is proposing large tax cuts and large defense-spending increases, said Viard, who left OSU to become an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and now is a resident scholar for the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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