Free Republic

Thousands of years after the Roman Empire fell, people are still speculating about how such a powerful empire became too feeble to defend itself. Did it become corrupt? Was its taxes too high? Was it widespread lead poisoning? The refusal to break up tribes it assimilated? Was it the loss of traditional values? Did it over-expand? There are all sorts of theories, but nobody really knows. However, if American falls, historians won’t have to speculate because the problems that are destroying our country are right there for anyone to see. You want to know how to break the greatest nation...

Did you know that the national debt could skyrocket if fiscally irresponsible Republicans decide to repeal ObamaCare? President Barack Obama, sounding a bit like a member of the Tea Party on Twitter Monday, warned that the national debt could increase by $137 billion if his signature achievement is repealed. This marks the first time Obama has ever shown concern about the national debt — which has exploded under his stewardship:The United States’ national debt has now passed the $18 trillion mark and is up by a whopping 70 percent since President Obama took office.

That didn’t take long. Earlier this month, in reference to the Department of Education’s $3.5 billion bailout for Corinthian College students, I observed at NRO, “What’s especially worrisome here is the frontal attack the administration is mounting on notions of students’ responsibility.” The fear was that sensible attention to student debt would change into an excuse for borrowers to default and stick taxpayers with the tab. That moment has already arrived. Just last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a report that found that co-signers have a rough time getting released from their promises to repay private student loans....

Like Greece, the Puerto Rican government has more debt than it can service, and some are calling for a bailout by U.S. taxpayers. The major Puerto Rican state-owned or controlled enterprises are all losing money, including the power authority which is insolvent. Puerto Rico is an American territory that was acquired from Spain in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. The island has a population of about 3.6 million, which is declining as many Puerto Ricans emigrate to the U.S. mainland or elsewhere because of the continuing economic stagnation. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, but their per capita income is about...

DETROIT may be one of the only cities in the rich world where it is possible for someone on a fairly modest income to buy a street. At the edges of Boston-Edison, a historic district of gorgeous old houses built as one of the city’s first wealthy suburbs, so low has the cost of housing fallen that fairly grand houses can be acquired simply for the cost of back property taxes. ..Chief among the costs that are higher in Detroit is transport. One of the reasons people who live in Manhattan don’t mind paying so much for housing is that...

Corporations, individuals and the federal government continue to rack up debt at a rate that is far faster than the overall rate of economic growth. We are literally drowning in red ink from sea to shining sea, and yet we just can’t help ourselves. Consumer credit has doubled since the year 2000. Student loan debt has doubled over the course of the past decade. Business debt has doubled since 2006. And of course the debt of the federal government has doubled since 2007. Anyone that believes that this is “sustainable” in any way, shape or form is crazy. We have...

(CNSNews.com) - The portion of the federal debt that is subject to a legal limit set by Congress closed Thursday, June 11, at $18,112,975,000,000, according to the latest Daily Treasury Statement, which was published at 4:00 p.m. on Friday. That, according to the Treasury's statements, makes 90 straight days the debt subject to the limit has been frozen at $18,112,975,000,000. $18,112,975,000,000 is about $25 million below the current legal debt limit of $18,113,000,080,959.35.

Chalk this one up to yet another New York Times liberal who wants others to pay his bills. (Paul Krugman must be proud.) On the 71st anniversary of what some considered the most important day of the twentieth century, a day where thousands of men, for the sake of others, paid with all that they had, the opinion pages of the New York Times ran the “brave” piece, “Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans.” (I suppose the author will receive the Bruce Jenner award for courage.)

Pick up any paper or magazine, and you’re likely to see a front-page article on college: It costs too much, spawns too much debt is or isn’t worth it. I entered academia 52 years ago as a student of Latin and Greek expecting to enter a placid sector of American life, and now find my chosen profession at the center of a media maelstrom. With college replacing high school as the required ticket for a career, what used to be a quiet corner is now a favorite target of policymakers and pundits. Unfortunately, most commentary on the value of college...

The U.S. and other wealthy nations have spent trillions of dollars over the past half-century trying to lift the world’s poorest people out of penury, with largely disappointing results. In 1966, shortly after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty, 14.7% of Americans were poor, under the official definition of the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2013, 14.5% of Americans were poor. Finally, after decades of failure there is a movement afoot to launch “a new generation of experimental programs focusing not on large-scale social support and development but on helping the poor and indebted to save more, live better...

The federal government will erase much of the debt of students who attended the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges, officials announced Monday, as part of a new plan that could cost taxpayers as much as $3.6 billion. Corinthian Colleges was one of the largest for-profit schools when it nearly collapsed last year and became a symbol of fraud in the world of higher education and student loans. According to investigators, Corinthian schools charged exorbitant fees, lied about job prospects for its graduates and, in some cases, encouraged students to lie about their circumstances to get more federal aid. In a plan orchestrated...

The political class -- they build themselves new office buildings and such -- live in a different universe from the rest of us, and the rest of us are getting routinely pickpocketed. No greater proof of this truth exists than the remarks of St. Paul's own City Council Member Dave Thune last week after Metro Transit released the financial figures for the first six months of the Green Line. Passengers boarding the Green Line from its debut in June, 2014 through the end of the year paid $6.21 million into the farebox, or about 35.8 percent of what it costs...

Half of the Millies are out of work and up to their eyebrows in student loan debt, Millies Millenials—people born between 1980 and 2000—have become a hot topic for politicos, economists, marketers, the “mainstream” media (read: Leftist Democrat Propaganda Machine) and a host of others in recent months. It’s estimated that there are about 80 million of these Millies in the U.S., a pretty hefty demographic comprising about a third of our population. Though the 2016 elections are nearly a year-and-a-half away, this significant bloc of potential voters is being looked at with increasing interest—more like with drooling jowls -...

While Metro Transit's Green Line isn't exactly paying for itself through passenger fares, it's doing a better job than most other Minnesota public transit options. Passengers boarding the state's second light-rail line from its debut in June through the end of 2014 paid $6.21 million into the fare box, or about 35.8 percent of what it costs to operate the 11-mile route. "I think 35 percent is a really good percentage," said St. Paul City Council member Dave Thune. "I love it. I think it has been a success. The kind of traffic it's seeing, going from one end of...

The uneven results of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy since the financial crisis should cause new thinking about how to conduct interest rate policy, said St. Louis Fed President James Bullard on Thursday in advocating for a new, controversial target. Standard economic theory predicted that the Fed’s decision to leave rates at zero and buy trillions of dollars of bonds would result in a consumption boom and above-average inflation, but that has not happened, sending economists back to the drawing board. Under Bullard’s proposal, the Fed would set an overall inflation target. In good times, the central bank would keep...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a law allowing Ukraine to impose a moratorium on repayment of its foreign debt until at least July 2016, a press release on Poroshenko's official website said Thursday. The Ukrainian parliament approved the bill, which could affect repayment of the country's $3-billion debt to Russia on May 19. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier the bill de facto was an announcement of a default, casting a negative light on the professionalism of Ukraine's leadership. Moreover, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that Moscow would turn to an international court if the Ukrainian president signed...

The world is sinking under too much debt and an ageing global population means countries' debt piles are in danger of growing out of control, the European chief executive of Goldman Sachs Asset Management has warned. Andrew Wilson, head of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), said growing debt piles around the world posed one of the biggest threats to the global economy.

Did you know that if you took every single penny away from everyone in the United States that it still would not be enough to pay off the national debt? Today, the debt of the federal government exceeds $145,000 per household, and it is getting worse with each passing year. Many believe that if we paid it off a little bit at a time that we could eventually pay it all off, but as you will see below that isn’t going to work either. It has been projected that “mandatory” federal spending on programs such as Social Security, Medicaid and...

A brilliant young man has single-handedly solved the problem of college loan debt. It was a daringly simple maneuver! Tennessee high school senior Ronald Nelson, Jr., who is a National Merit Scholar, star athlete, sax player, SAT high scorer, and student body president, turned down acceptances from eight Ivy League colleges and will instead attend the University of Alabama this fall. Young Ronald seems to have absorbed at an early age a lesson that eludes many youths (and those who have long since left youth behind): avoid going head over heels in debt. This is not to denigrate an Ivy...

Senate Democrats on Thursday demanded that Republicans provide more money for Amtrak so the railroad can tackle a $21 billion maintenance and repair backlog, including replacing tunnels more than a century old. Democrats at a news conference cited last week's deadly crash in Philadelphia and said the backlog is compromising safety and service. Democrats want to Congress to give Amtrak the entire $2 billion in subsidies the railroad requested for the budget year that starts Oct. 1. They say GOP lawmakers have starved the railroad financially for years. A Republican-controlled House panel approved a spending bill the day after the...