Solutions for Reducing the National Debt in...

     It is quite obvious that now the U.S. government has so much debt.  It has been said $53 trillion. How did the U.S. end up getting this huge debt? From the data on facing up website “Federal budget: expenditures” we can see medical care, national defense, Social Security, and interest on debt are  the largest part of expenditures of the U.S. government. The largest percent is for Social Security. I want to talk about three parts: Social Security, national defense and medical care.

     The world of medical technology is improving, which means people tend to live longer. The more old people we get, the more funds we must budget for Social Security. Since there is a limit, eventually the budget of the U.S. would be facing a shortage of funds. Therefore, we need to have another way of funding Social Security or we are not going to have the same Social Security system in the future. Social security should not give people extra income they do not need.  Also, if one person works and the other one does not have a job, the money from Social Security should be different. For example, the person who has a job can get $500, and then the other one who does not have a job can get $1000, creates the wrong kind of incentive..  Those who are working, they should save money for later when they get old.  However, there is one problem if the person did not have a job. Without a job to earn income, how could people save money for when they get old? So I think changing Social Security is much better idea.

     For national defense, it is the second large for spending more money in the U.S. For example, in last 50 years, they spent more money for Korean and Vietnam wars. Since 2001, the US spent more money for the war in Iraq. It lasted 8 years. They always waste more money and did not do many things for really helping. They borrowed money from other countries to keep sending the military to Iraq. They should stop sending people and stop having wars. Especially since war does not solve anything; it just wastes their money. From the website ), we can see the data. From 2001, when President Bush started being in charge as the president for United States, the war’s debt is increasing. It is really a big number for the red part. He made it worse. When he was the president in American, they spent more money for wars. So the rate of change for national defense is rapidly increasing in the national debt. 

     For medical care, more and more people need to go to hospital, and it costs a lot of money for seeing doctor in the United States. If having more people to see doctors, it means the country has more budgets for the medical care to take care of people who need to see the doctor. For example, in a town, there are 1000 people, when in a hospital there are 800 people, they all need to see doctor, and they need more hospitals. So they need to give more budgets for building hospitals or to have more medical equipments. So in the US, if there are more unhealthy people, they can not work and do more things for the government. So the government will lose a lot of employees. So, people’s health is good for the economy and good for the government. So if people need more hospitals or doctors, the government needs to build for them.     Also, the US needs to do the solutions for interest on debt, Medicaid and S-CHIP, other income security, other retirement and disability programs and so on.  They look like so small percent, but for the whole country, they are really big numbers. So the government needs to do something for reducing the debt.

     These are my ideas. Maybe they are not good ideas, but I think it can help the US to reduce the debt. These three main parts which are Social Security, national defense and medical care, are really very important for debt in the US. So they need to be in control of the government.  If the government does not control, its greatest areas of spending, the national debt will keep growing.