Mitchell Trying to Get Reelected

Harry Mitchell is in a tough district and is clearly trying to get reelected. The East Vally Tribune has an article about the bill the recently elected Democratic Congressman from Arizona has proposed.

I think in someways it is a good proposal. I have wondered for a while why the estate tax is not graduated. There are two problem that I see, one the proposal is DOA and two, we need the money. I know it is not popular to talk about, but the Federal Government is headed towards bankruptcy. Our third largest expenditure is the interest on the federal debt around $300 Billion a year. The Bush administration has made this problem much worse with their tax-cut and spend policies. In the end, we may not like tax increases and probable cuts in services, but they are better than insolvency.

The United States public debt, commonly called the national debt, gross federal debt or U.S. government debt, is the amount of money owed by the United States federal government to creditors who hold U.S. Debt Instruments. As of the end of 2006, the total U.S. federal public debt was $4.9 trillion. This does not include the money owed by states, corporations, or individuals, nor does it include the money owed to Social Security beneficiaries in the future. If intragovernment debt obligations are included, the debt figure rises to $8.7 trillion. If unfunded future obligations are added (i.e. Medicare and Social Security) this figure rises dramatically to a total of $59.1 Trillion [1].
In 2005 the public debt was 64.7% of GDP. According to the CIA's World Factbook, this meant that the U.S. public debt was the 35th largest in the world by percentage of GDP.[2] [3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

This is the issue that keeps me up at night...