Koppel and Krauthammer on national debt

The national debt of the United States today is $13.2 trillion and by some estimates that will grow in the next 15 to 20 years to $34 trillion. Ted Koppel, former anchor of "Nightline," speaking at a Kentucky Chamber of Commerce event earlier this week in Louisville, said, "I believe that the deficit in front of us is the greatest danger that the United States has ever faced."

How much is a trillion dollars? Koppel said, imagine a business that started the day Christ was born, and run by idiots (who worked hard, however), and the business lost $1 million the first day. And it lost $1 million every day for a year, and for a thousand years, and for two thousand years (today) -- it still would not have lost $1 trillion. It would be another thousand years before the business lost $1 trillion. Koppel's point: We cannot grow our way out of this. The four choices are: (1) borrow more, (2) raise taxes, (3) cut spending, or (4) print more money. which would fuel inflation.

While Koppel called the deficit (national debt) the “greatest danger,” nationally syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, in a column a few days after Koppel’s remark, wrote that the nation’s debt “will necessitate huge tax increases.”

Krauthammer noted that the real money in the federal budget goes to entitlements, most specifically Medicare and Medicaid, and “Obamacare freezes these out as a source of debt reduction. Obamacare’s $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $600 billion in tax increases are siphoned away for a new entitlement — and no longer available for deficit reduction.

“The result? There just isn’t enough to cut elsewhere to prevent national insolvency. That will require massive tax increases — most likely a European-style value-added tax. Just as President Reagan cut taxes to starve the federal government and prevent massive growth in spending, Obama’s wild spending — and quarantining health-care costs from providing possible relief — will necessitate huge tax increases.”

Kentucky Roll Call’s observation on what Koppel and Krauthammer are telling us: The people we elected over the years, Democrats and Republicans, have created a situation that ultimately will leave only one way to avoid the dismantling of America — a massive tax increase.