National Debt Essay

Fiscal year 2015, the national debt was $18.15 trillion. According to the US debt clock, in October of 2016 the debt has risen to $19.7 trillion. The debt continues to rise because the total expenditures is significantly larger than the total revenue. With the deficit added on, the national debt rises greatly over a short period of time. The healthcare and social security spendings combined uses nearly 50% of the federal spending. The budget for these sections cannot be cut significantly without thought because people would suffer. The national debt of the United States can be decreased by putting a cap on the amount of money used for Medicare and Medicaid, and by raising taxes for the wealthiest members of the United States.

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“‘Hillary will fully pay for these [Infrastructure] investments through business tax reform.’” (Hendrie). Her plan is to raise taxes for the middle class, and the upper class. Although this may cause a strain in some lower middle class homes in order to keep up with the tax, it would positively impact the national debt. Currently, about $3.7 trillion is collected in taxes. In the United States, there are many people in the lower middle class and the low working class but, on the other hand, the United States also has many upper middle class, and upper class people. Some of these people take their wealth for granted, and do not think much about helping people who may be less fortunate than them. The raising of tax for the middle and upper class would help to not only decrease the national debt, but to also decrease the gap between the different classes. Once the tax is raised, tax intake would increase by about $1 trillion. Since this is quite a significant number, it would have a pretty decent impact on the national debt. The total expenditures of FY 2015 was $3.688 trillion, whereas the revenue was $3.249. There is a difference of $439 billion, which would have been easily covered with a tax increase. The remaining $561 trillion could be used to decrease the national