The National Debt, Senator Hatch, and Your Family

There has been a lot of talk during this campaign season about the national debt with a lot of tables and figures attempting to show how it relates to us as individuals.  There is one statistic I have not been able to find.  This statistic would really make it personal—how much of an average household salary would it take to pay off the national debt?

Below is a table that answers that question beginning in 1977.  In that year, Carter was president and Senator Orrin Hatch was a wide-eyed rookie senator. The average household income was $11,743, the national debt was $719 billion, and the population was about 220 million. If you do the math, the debt, per person, was about $3,264, or 28% of an annual salary. In other words, if everyone in the country scrimped and saved and chipped in about a quarter of his or her salary for just one year, the national debt could be paid off.  You will see that Hatch voted three times in a row to not increase federal debt.

While that percentage dipped a little over the next few years to a low of 26%, it started to slowly rise in 1983 to 32%, then 35%, then 38% and then kept rising and rising and rising--and where was Hatch now? Voting "Yes" over and over again.  By that time, as Dan Liljenquist puts it, Hatch was "pickled." He had been in DC "brine water" so long he just started doing what Washington politicians all do--go along to get along.

Things really started getting bad when Clinton took office—60%, 61%. Then the Republican revolution in Congress brought it down to 59% in 1995 then down, down, down to 49% by 2000. But by 2004, it started going up, up, up again until now, in 2012, it would take almost a full year’s salary from every man woman and child to pay off the national debt. And it is only going to get worse.

The common talking point today is that Hatch voted 16 times to raise federal debt for about $7.5 trillion.  The actual voting record supports this--it is a fact.  He voted “Yes” and agreed via a voice vote a few times with only a few “No’s” sprinkled in. In the end, Hatch was mostly a“Yes” man when it came to spending our money--money we do not have.

One of the important things I learned from this exercise is that while it appears that Democrats may be more guilty than Republicans on this issue no one is blameless.  All parties and all presidents contributed to this problem.  This is an "inside the beltway" mentality. It is like the proverbial frog in a pot--it just kept getting hotter and hotter. The frog is now cooked, dead.

The thing I like about Dan Liljenquist is that he does not gloss over this problem.  He will look you straight in the eye and say—it is going to have to get worse before it gets better. The debt ceiling is going to have to go up before it can come down again. Dan is willing to treat a brutal fact for what it is—a brutal fact—and not gloss over it with talk of a balanced budget amendment. What good is a balanced budget amendment if you are spending money at this rate! In the real world they call it “living beyond your means.” Over spending is over spending whether it is with today’s dollars or tomorrows and whether budgets are balanced or not!

The good news is that this year we have a GOP US Senate candidate right here in Utah who understands these problems and has the skills and passion to solve them.  That man is Dan Liljenquist. Utah and the USA needs Dan and we need him now.

*****

Debt as a Percentage of Average Household Income 1977-Present

President	Congress	Year	Debt per Person	Average Annual Household Income	Debt as % of Annual HI (debt/HI)	Hatch Vote*:
Carter	Democrat	1977	$3,264.37	$11,743	28%	No
	Democrat	1978	$3,545.65	$13,121	27%	No
	Democrat	1979	$3,755.15	$14,605	26%	No
	Democrat	1980	$4,093.79	$16,017	26%	Yes
Reagan	Democrat	1981	$4,483.15	$17,375	26%	Yes
	Democrat	1982	$5,167.27	$18,422	28%	Yes
	Democrat	1983	$6,034.00	$18,859	32%	Yes
	Democrat	1984	$7,051.70	$20,295	35%	Yes
	Democrat	1985	$8,178.72	$21,405	38%	Yes
	Democrat	1986	$9,223.37	$22,588	41%	Yes
	Democrat	1987	$10,036.43	$23,685	42%	No
	Democrat	1988	$10,979.15	$24,879	44%	No
Bush,GHW	Democrat	1989	$11,964.20	$26,550	45%	Yes
	Democrat	1990	$13,489.57	$27,601	49%	Yes
	Democrat	1991	$15,078.88	$27,937	54%	***
	Democrat	1992	$16,380.78	$28,547	57%	***
Clinton	Democrat	1993	$17,597.50	$29,244	60%	Yes
	Democrat	1994	$18,441.60	$30,321	61%	***
	Republican	1995	$18,985.28	$32,191	59%	***
	Republican	1996	$20,073.06	$33,593	60%	Yes
	Republican	1997	$20,550.96	$35,086	59%	Yes
	Republican	1998	$20,770.43	$36,932	56%	***
	------------	----			----
	Republican	2000	$19,429.62	$39,926	49%	***
	------------	----			----	(Yes, 2002)
Bush, GW	Republican	2004	$25,931.14	$42,167	61%	Yes
	------------	----			----	(Yes, 2005)
	Republican	2006	$29,559.22	$45,817	65%	Yes
	DemH/TieS	2007	$30,825.77	$47,752	65%	Yes
	DemH/TieS	2008	$35,474.32	$47,832	74%	Yes
	------------	----			----
Obama	Democrat	2010	$45,426.45	$47,022	97%	No
	RepH/DemS	2011	$48,543.94	$49,909	97%	No

*Note: Hatch votes are a summary of the actual voting record on the debt ceiling. “Yes” and “Voice Votes” were combined to a Yes. The *** means no votes on debt were taken that year. Votes prior to 1989 can be found at any law library.