The 10 biggest reasons we're in debt

Speaking of gambling, the author neglects to mention derivatives, something Warren Buffet calls Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The Too Big To Fail (or Jail) banks are currently gambling on highly leveraged financial instruments called derivatives. The value of these derivatives are in the range of several hundred trillion dollars to one quadrillion dollars, many times greater than the world GDP.

What happens when one of these Too Big To Fail (or Jail) banks fails? Even if the Federal Reserve were to print money to bail out these banks, it would cause massive hyperinflation.

Another article on debt that ignores the national debt and annual budget deficit.

National debt is $16.8 trillion and growing. A "temporary" lifting of the debt ceiling allows the national debt to grow without limit. Will the U.S. Congress and President keep authorizing "temporary" liftings of the debt ceiling until it becomes de facto permanent?

What about unfunded liabilities of the U.S. Government? They amount to $100 to $222 trillion, but because the U.S. Governement does not follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) that every business has to follow, no one knows about the huge problem of unfunded liabilities. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and foreign wars make up a large amount of this.

Annual budget deficit is typically $1.1 to $1.3 trillion per year out of a $3.5 trillion budget (and growing).

$802 billion for Medicare and Medicaid
$768 billion for Social Security
$670 billion for Defense
$615 billion for "discretionary" government programs
$461 billion for other "mandatory" government programs
$223 billion for interest on the national debt

Families get into financial trouble when they spend too much.
So do countries, even big and prosperous countries like the United States of America.

The debtor is a slave to the lender.

It is interesting to me the only two debts that are "estimated" are medical and "gambling."  Gambling would be kept quiet, I think, and medical is probably due to the fact that it rises so fast nobody can count it.  The one reason, in my opinion, we are in debt is CONgress!!! If we could keep most of what we make, we wouldn't have to borrow nearly as much money.  And, yet I notice it says "taxex owed to CONgress...."  Why don't they state that more accurately as "money extorted by CONgress?"  CONgress could control medical expenses, but they don't.  It is a racket.  Even as I type this, I am hearing "tell your doctor", "ask your doctor" and want to yell.  If I have to "ask my doctor" I need a new doctor!!!  I wish I could get a new CONgress as easily as a new doctor.

obamacare is like forcing a student loan debt on every person in America.  We know we have to pay it back but how we pay it back is uncertain due to the economy.

We didn't put ourselves in this pickle the politicians did.  Bad financial management.  They need to pay back the debt!

debt what happens when the feds start raising interest rates.  government was not smart enough to lock in  on low  rates