Debt Increases
The 2010 Budget proposed by President Barack Obama projects significant debt increases. A $220 billion increase from the already significant budget shortfall inherited at $1.2 trillion in 2009 from the GW Bush Administration. The high level of debt and continuing large trade deficits have raised concerns regarding inflation and the value of the dollar relative to other currencies, as well as its place as the primary reserve currency. The Economist wrote in May 2009: "Having spent a fortune bailing out their banks, Western governments will have to pay a price in terms of higher taxes to meet the interest on that debt. In the case of countries (like Britain and America) that have trade as well as budget deficits, those higher taxes will be needed to meet the claims of foreign creditors. Given the political implications of such austerity, the temptation will be to default by stealth, by letting their currencies depreciate. Investors are increasingly alive to this danger..."
Read more about this topic: 2010 United States Federal Budget
Famous quotes containing the words debt and/or increases:
“I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant. Now we reckon them as bank-days, by some debt which is to be paid us, or which we are to pay, or some pleasure we are to taste.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.”
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