By Terence P. Jeffrey
November 4, 2012
(CNSNews.com) – If Americans under the age of 18 were required as a group to pay off the entirety of the federal government’s debt in equal shares, each would now need to pay about $218,676.
That is more than the $130,468 average price tag for four years at a private college or the $173,100 median price for an existing one-family home in the United States.
During the time Barack Obama has been president, the U.S. government debt has increased from approximately $143,255 per American under 18 to approximately $218,676 per American under 18–a climb of $75,421 or about 53 percent.
As of Nov. 1, the total national debt was $16,221,685,381,838.28, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt. On Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama was inaugurated, it was $10,626,877,048,913.08. Thus, during Obama’s presidency, the U.S. government debt has increased $5,594,808,332,925.20.
The 2010 Census said there were 74,181,467 people in the United States under the age of 18. Thus the total U.S. government debt of $16,221,685,381,838.28 equals about $218,676 per person under 18, and the $5,594,808,332,925.20 in new debt accumulated under Obama equals about $75,421 per person under 18.
The Census Bureau’s 2012 Statistical Abstract of the United States said the median price of an existing one-family home was $173,100 in 2010 (the latest year included in the abstract).
The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics says that in the 2010-2011 school year the average price for total tuition and room and board for a full-time undergraduate at a four-year private college or university was $32,617. Were that rate to remain constant for four years, an undergraduate degree from a private college would cost about $130,486.
Neither borrowing all the money needed to pay for a four-year private-college education nor borrowing all the money needed to buy a median-priced home would put as much debt on the shoulders of young Americans as the federal government already has.
