debt as a percentage of GDP

[Red Arrow]

edit to add: and what if there were those in our country willing to sign a personal guarantee for this indebtedness? I'll take some of Lake Meade as a lien.

I would hold out for a potential money maker like the Creek, Turner, or Will Rogers Turnpike.  It would be difficult to say which part of Lake Meade was yours w.r.t. the water.  Some shoreline would be another story.

[Teatownclown]

From the Pew Research Center:

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, more than 25 percent of America's nearly 600,000 bridges need significant repairs or are burdened with more traffic than they were designed to carry.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, approximately a third of America's major roadways are in substandard condition - a significant factor in a third of the more than 43,000 traffic fatalities in the United States each year.
The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that traffic jams caused by insufficient infrastructure waste 4 billion hours of commuters' time and nearly 3 billion gallons of gasoline a year.
The Association of State Dam Safety Officials has found that the number of dams in the United States that could fail has grown 134% since 1999 to 3,346, and more than 1,300 of those are considered "high-hazard" - meaning that their collapse would threaten lives.
More than a third of all dam failures or near failures since 1874 have happened in just the last decade.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, aging sewer systems spill an estimated 1.26 trillion gallons of untreated sewage every single year, resulting in an estimated 50.6 billion dollars in cleanup costs.
From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

A decaying transportation system costs our economy more than $78 billion annually in lost time and fuel.
The United States must invest $225 billion per year over the next 50 years to maintain and adequately enhance our surface transportation systems. Currently, we're spending less than 40% of this amount.
U.S. transit systems earned a D+ rating from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Transit funding is declining even as transit use increases faster than any other mode of transportation - up 21% between 1993 and 2002.
Costs attributed to airline delays - due in large part to congestion and an antiquated air traffic control system - are expected to triple to $30 billion from 2000 to 2015.
By 2020, every major U.S. container port is projected to be handling at least double the volume it was designed to handle.
Throughout the United States, railroads are projected to need nearly $200 billion in investment over the next 20 years to accommodate freight increases.
So, just how far up our donkey do we have to have our heads to figure out we need to a national public works program, and we need it yesterday?

http://www.america2050.org/2008/06/npr-hosts-judith-rodin-and-rob.html

Invest in America. Invest for your children....

[Teatownclown]

Debt-Ceiling Deal's Cuts Could Crash Economy

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011062312/debt-ceiling-deals-cuts-could-crash-economy

bottom line:"The Republicans are demanding that we cut and gut our government and therefore our economy in exchange for keeping the country from defaulting on its debts. The deal they are demanding will do just as much harm as default. Instead we need to invest in We, the People with jobs and infrastructure that enable us to grow our way out of this mess."

[Conan71]

Debt-Ceiling Deal's Cuts Could Crash Economy

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011062312/debt-ceiling-deals-cuts-could-crash-economy

bottom line:"The Republicans are demanding that we cut and gut our government and therefore our economy in exchange for keeping the country from defaulting on its debts. The deal they are demanding will do just as much harm as default. Instead we need to invest in We, the People with jobs and infrastructure that enable us to grow our way out of this mess."

Infrastructure growth and improvement to support a growing population is a worthy use of government resources and tax dollars.  Especially considering if there's more of a push when the economy is down, it helps to drive jobs but also helps make sure we have a better infrastructure available to transport goods when commerce ramps back up.  

Now, I've got to ask:  Why aren't there better programs in place to get more people off unemployment, welfare, and SSD to make those projects a reality?  When I drive past our locally-funded projects, I see a lot of people who look like guest workers leaning on shovels and running heavy equipment.  Any reason we need "guest workers" for those jobs when there's lots of 'mercans looking for an honest day's work?

We are so far in a hole though, we really need to do a better job of saying we need road and rail projects rather than jerk-off university studies on the mating habits of june bugs and trying to be a nanny for every human need.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Conan,
China really won't worry about the money we owe them.  That is a classic example of the "house of cards" economy we live with in today's world.  We buy an infinite number of Chinese items.  They have a extreme buildup of their economy and infrastructure, with a trillion or two left over that they don't know how to spend fast enough to be of more benefit to their economy than parking it in our treasury notes.  We get the money to use.

We buy from them.
They build their country.
They give us the money we paid them back.
Everyone wins.

It's monopoly money that has had very real effects in the real world.  Built China's economy.  Helped us get cheap stuff.  Helped us sustain our bad habits, since we are hopeless addicts that cannot say no to ourselves.  It won't matter if they ever get the money back, because the benefit is in that buildup and it is real, and is of much greater value than the dollars in the debt.  The money they gave us back is just the capital investment to build a world class economy in 15 years or so.  And one hell of a bargain at that!  It cost us a lot more to get to the same point and took much longer time.