The National Debt, personal debt & scary Unfunded Federal Obligations (the other UFOs)
9 a) What do you mean “Unfunded Liabilities”?
As was mentioned the earlier blog we have a significant problem with the National Debt as it currently stands at over $18 trillion. I also mentioned the good news and that is that the rate of growth has slowed to $ 1 million every three minutes. Further, the annual deficit is actually reducing and moving towards a balanced state. Unfortunately the rate of decrease is rather minor and appears to be slowing slightly. If it did remain unchanged we could expect it to balance in 2065, but by that time the National debt would well exceed $30 trillion.
Most folks are not aware of the even bigger picture of National Unfunded Liability which stands at over $123 trillion! What comprises this Liability?
By far the largest unfunded liability is for Medicare at over $79 trillion. Most of the remainder are health related: Prescription Drugs & Healthcare. Social Security unfunded debt is small by comparison at just over $15 trillion. When pondering these astronomical numbers which amount to almost $1 million per American Household think about the issues that were raised in the blogs on our Health Care System and why so much time was spent on this area. The cost of Health Care is the most significant issue we are facing and yet no substantive action is being taken to resolve. You can keep up with the status of these unfunded liabilities at:
You can monitor the status of our National Debt and annual deficit (or surplus) at:
What this means to me is that we have completely mortgaged our future. This unfunded liability is far too great for to ever think about paying to catch it up. Currently it is not being funded, but the amount increases every minute. You might think that, “this is not my problem”. Let the government solve it. Unfortunately we are the government and your elected representatives have created this liability for all of us. How do you feel about it?