At 12:18 PM 8/20/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote:

One estimate I have seen places the overall national debt, counting obligations and promised payments, at $20 trillion, or four times the official number. And it is still increasing every year. To see how large this is, there are 100 million taxpayers in the U.S., roughly. This means each of these taxpayers has an average indebtedness of $200,000. Most American households do not have this amount of money in total net worth, obviously. Thus, they "owe" much more than they are worth.

Obviously enough, the portion of this debt is not distributed uniformly amongst households, or won't be if it is ever collected. But you get the drift. The country has been spending far more than it has been taking in for many years, and is far worse shape than "official" figures about the National Debt would tend to suggest.

Neither Dole nor Clinton appear to want to talk about this, both having done their parts to make the situation what it is today.

This is exactly why I'm astonished when a few people occasionally (and, prematurely) reject my "Assassination Politics" idea. If the problem is as big as all that (and it is!) then these people are well and truly guilty of way more than enough crimes to merit their deaths. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com