To The Reader’s Forum:

After sitting through and watching literally dozens of debates, town halls and candidate interviews I am truly surprised that the ever expanding national debt is rarely mentioned.

According to the National Debt Clock, our current national debt is $19.1 trillion; with projected deficits of $616 billion for fiscal year 2016 and $503 billion for fiscal year 2017. A trillion is 1,000 billion, and a billion is 1,000 million. The annual interest expense on the debt is currently $237.1 billion, and growing, and that is computed at our current very low interest rates. If, by chance, we could balance the budget and actually have a surplus of say, $100 billion annually, it would take, are you ready for this, 190 years to pay it off; without factoring in the annual interest. With interest factored in,we would increase our national debt, annually by $137 billion!

Some talk about saddling our grandchildren with this debt, we should be talking of saddling our ancestors, forever, with the debt. Something simply had to be done to attack this problem or the greatest nation on the planet is destined to be held hostage by those who actually hold this debt.

Tim Fagerstrom

Ashville