
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 3, 1990                   TAG: 9004030516
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

GROSS COSTS/ PAYING OFF THE DEBT

AMERICA continues to pay the price for the profligacy of the borrow-and-spend Reagan years. The consequence of the huge federal deficits of the early and middle '80s is a huge national debt, on which America now must make huge interest payments.

How huge?

We can't remember offhand whether a stack of $3.1 trillion (the national debt) in dollar bills would reach the moon or Mars or wherever. But a recent report from Congressional Quarterly reminds us that the $175.6 billion in net debt-service costs this year:

Has overtaken "income security" to become the third biggest item in the budget, after defense and Social Security.

Would pay off this year's federal deficit, with enough left over to cover the natural-resources and environmental-protection budget.

In nominal dollars, is more than three times the $52.5 billion cost of servicing the debt in 1980, and is up from 2 percent in 1980 to 3.3 percent of the gross national product.

Is probably an understatement of the real debt-service costs. Gross interest payments - which includes interest owed by the government to its own accounts, such as the Social Security or highway trust funds - are expected this year to reach $255 billion. That pushes the item above Social Security payments and makes it second only to defense spending.

by CNB