By Brock Pierce
Despite having the largest economy in the world, America has more sovereign debt than any other nation by far. At over $27 trillion ($27,000,000,000,000), the U.S. national debt is now at the highest level it has been since World War II, both in total and relative to GDP. The total amount of debt in the U.S. is currently over $84 trillion, amounting to over a quarter of a million dollars for each and every resident. These historically high levels of debt encourage economic volatility and threaten America’s standing as the world’s wealthiest nation.
The negative economic impact of high debt levels, that inevitably results from continued deficit spending, weakens the U.S. dollar. As the world’s unofficial standard currency, the U.S. dollar is the currency of choice for almost 40% of the world’s debt and over 60% of all foreign bank transactions. The strength of the U.S. dollar is a consequence of the relative strength of the U.S. economy. So, whenever the American economy weakens, the U.S. dollar is weakened as well.
Rather than reducing our national debt by ending deficit spending and implementing fiscally responsible monetary and economic policies, the two-party system of American politics has continued to hurl our nation into a downward spiral of irresponsible spending and growing debt. As a result, financial experts have determined that the U.S. dollar’s status as the global reserve currency is now threatened, most recently due to our government’s economic response to the coronavirus pandemic. As things stand, the U.S. dollar is being devalued by increased fiscal spending, monetary injections, interest payment requirements, and debt monetization.
Every day, millions of Americans are personally affected by growing debt. As a nation, we are burdened by over $20 trillion in personal debt — which includes mortgages, student loans, auto loans, credit card and medical debt. About 47% of Americans are burdened with credit card debt and last year over 137 million Americans faced financial hardship as a result of medical bills, according to recent research. At least 1 in 6 Americans has medical debt that is past due, amounting to $81 billion in 2018, and over half of those with medical debt have defaulted on their loans.
Despite being the wealthiest nation in the world, America has the world’s highest levels of student debt. Currently, 1 in 5 Americans is carrying student loan debt and more than a tenth of them have defaulted on their loans. These unprecedented levels of student debt are the direct result of exceptionally inflated costs of American higher education combined with insufficient public funding to support the educational needs of America’s students.
The effects of living paycheck to paycheck and racking up debt to cover unexpected expenses have led to a situation in which many Americans cannot afford to fulfill their most basic needs. While wages adjusted for inflation have remained stagnant, the cost of living has risen, leading to a decline in median household net worth throughout the U.S. Meanwhile, corporate debt levels are higher than they have ever been, currently equaling about half of America’s GDP. With the spread of the coronavirus and the consequent global economic slowdown, experts are concerned that many companies in sectors like energy, hospitality, and auto manufacturing will be unable to honor their debt payments.
It is clear that, in order to solve the debt problems we are facing as a nation, it is necessary for us to accept the fact that the fiscal and economic irresponsibility of both our Democratic and Republican elected officials over the past 40 years is the fundamental cause. It is clear that we need to be fiscally responsible while still caring for the needs of every American. As the wealthiest nation on Earth, America does not have resource problems; it has resource allocation problems, efficiency problems, transparency problems, and administration problems. These problems are all solvable — but not if we keep making the same mistake of voting for the two political parties that created these problems in the first place.
As an independent candidate for President of the United States of America, I am committed to doing what it takes to actually solve the problems we face as a nation. As an independent candidate, I cannot and will not compromise my integrity to conform to the policy platform of any political party. As an independent candidate, I believe it is time for us to free ourselves of our country’s two-party system of control and move beyond it. It is time to bring independence back to America. It is time to support the life, liberty, and happiness of every American. It is time to free ourselves from the burden of indebtedness to an irresponsible two-party political establishment.
