Keeping Count National Debt Continues To Pile Up At A Dizzying Rate, But Hardly Anyone Pays Attention

The debt counter was running at a dizzying rate of $9,600 a second as the Riverfront Park clock struck noon.

While the Carrousel spun, bicyclists pedaled and sunbathers absorbed ultraviolet rays, another $1 million was added to the national debt in less than two minutes.

A representative of a federal budgetbalancing group and Spokane Councilwoman Bev Numbers decried the nation’s mounting debt, but few people seemed to care Tuesday.

Maybe it was the location selected for the Spokane stop on the Concorde Coalition’s national debt clock tour of America.

At noon on a July day, the clock tower meadow in Riverfront Park is more likely to attract Frisbee players than fiscal analysts.

But the coalition attracted hundreds of shoppers Monday at downtown Seattle’s Westlake Center, state coordinator Stan Monlux said.

Maybe it was the vast sum on the rapidly changing board. With the nation’s total debt figured at more than $4.9 trillion, the clock displays a string of 13 digits - an amount beyond the comprehension of most people.

Maybe it was the speeches, which were long on rhetoric but short on solutions.

Numbers, for example, said it is time to “get down to the brass tacks of knowing what we pay for.” She suggested the debate over budget priorities must “come down to the nitty-gritty of what we think are important.”

Not to be outdone in cliches, Monlux talked of watching elected officials to “make sure their nose is to the grindstone.” To erase the deficit, he warned, “we’re going to have to pull in all our belts.”

Monlux offered some documents from the Concorde Coalition that suggest how to get the deficit - the amount the nation must borrow each year - down to zero.

Those suggestions include cutting entitlement programs such as Social Security, welfare and veterans benefits; reducing military spending; eliminating about a dozen federal programs; and raising the gasoline tax by a nickel a gallon each year for five years.

Once the deficit is at zero, he said, the counters would start running the other way as the debt is paid off.

The coalition’s Zero Deficit Plan was available in a 67-page book or an eight-page summary.

After his speech, Monlux gave a brochure to one of the few people who had interrupted an afternoon in the park to gaze at the sign.

The teenager - who stared intently at the counter and asked “What’s that?” - turned out to be an inmate from the juvenile corrections facility who was on break from a work detail.

The dozen or so people who came to the meadow for the presentation included a few regular Spokane City Hall critics. They groused that Numbers and other council members contribute to the debt by regularly applying for federal money.

Everyone is contributing to the debt, Numbers said later. She said she’s not convinced the city should stop applying for federal grants while everyone else continues doing so.

She acknowledged that plays into a philosophy that helps the debt keep growing: “If somebody else gets theirs, I get mine.”

The debt counter helps raise public awareness of the debt, Numbers said.

“I don’t think we as Americans are aware as we should be,” she said as the numbers blinked past. “It’s just hard to fathom.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo