What might also come to play a role in how this November’s midterms turn out, or at least it should if enough of the American people are paying the slightest bit of attention, might be the fact that as of last Friday, the total debt of the federal government is now nearly $18 Trillion, coming it at $17,858,480,029,490.28. That was equal to $200,258.81 for each of the 89,177,000 full-time ‘private-sector’ workers that were in the United States in 2013.
Federal debt per full-time ‘private-sector’ worker has escalated, and escalated very rapidly. For example, at the end of 2007, the total federal debt was $9,229,172,659,218.31, which equaled $101,158.25 for each of the 91,235,000 full-time ‘private-sector’ workers in the United States that year. In 2000, the total federal debt was $5,662,216,013,697.37, which equaled $66,553.23 for each of the 85,078,000 full-time private-sector workers that year.
So as a way of putting this whole debt thing into perspective, regarding the crushing burden future generations will be made to bare, let’s use as our example the cost of attending one of our four-year private colleges. Because the sad reality is that, on average, going to a four-year private college, and borrowing every single penny of the cost, would actually impose much less of a burden on this year's college freshman than will the weight of our national debt place upon them once they become full-time private-sector workers.
Because upon graduating these enterprising young college grads, at least those fortunate enough to find full-time private-sector employment after leaving college behind them, the covering of the cost of their four years in college will actually place less of a burden on them than will covering the cost of the federal deficit spending that has taken place, per every full-time private-sector worker, before that young person ever stepped foot onto his or her college campus.
Now it’s according to the College Board that the full price for tuition, fees, room and board at a four-year private college in the 2013-2014 school year averaged $40,917. At that rate, a student who went to a private college for four years would spend, an average, about $163,668 for their education, if they paid full fare. Thus, the current federal debt per full-time private-sector worker of $200,258.81 exceeds the average four-year cost at a private college by about $36,591.
When this year's college freshmen graduate and, hopefully are able to get jobs, quite likely the biggest personal expense that they will come to face is the buying of a home. So which will be greater: the federal debt per full-time private-sector worker, or buying an existing single-family home? In the short run, it may be a close call. In 2013, the median price on an existing single-family home was $197,400, according to the National Association of Realtors.
In January, it was $187,900. But by August, the latest month for which figures are available, it had risen to $220,600. But single-family homes were less expensive in August in the South and Midwest, where the median prices were $192,000 and $175,000, respectively. Still, a person putting a 10-percent down payment of $22,060 on a single-family home at the median August price of $220,600 would end up with a mortgage of $198,540.
That $198,540 mortgage is less than the $200,258.81 in current federal debt per full-time private-sector worker. Americans who invest in a college education or a single-family home are not only buying a solid asset that will serve them well for the rest of their lives; they are investing in what we used to consider the American dream. But it’s that same American dream that has now been "fundamentally transformed" into less of a dream and more of a nightmare.
Because at the end of the day, Americans who get up every morning and go to work, and do it week after week after week, and are forced to pay progressively higher taxes to maintain a federal welfare state that is driving our national debt to an unsustainable level are being forced to subsidize a system that is accomplishing nothing more than to kill the American dream. And unless we make some radical changes, and soon, things are only going to get worse.
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