Putting The National Debt On A Credit Card

The national deficit is very much like the credit card your parents gave you in college, except your parents are probably not Chinese bankers. Nor did you end up owing $1.27 trillion, as the U.S. did to the Chinese in 2010 (though you may have drank $1.27 trillion in beer).

But the U.S. debt is far more complicated than college expenses, and requires a colorful pie chart to understand. In support of the U.S. Colorful Pie Chart industry (soon to be outsourced to India), we present this gaudy example of what our money’s being spent on:

National Debt Breakdown

If we look closely at the chart, we see the many colors that Eastern Europeans and Haitian men like to wear in polyester clothing — and more importantly, we see where we’re spending that $1.27 trillion.

But no one likes pie charts, even people who really like pie. So in order to more easily explain the U.S. debt, we went to Walmart to buy a bunch of stuff that represents the national debt, then charged the debt to our own low interest credit card.

But since our credit limit is slightly below a trillion clams, we lopped off ten zeroes, and spent $127.00 instead, with each department getting a corresponding percentage of that dough.

Let the shopping begin!

Here’s how it all broke down.

Social Security (20%, or about $25)

Depend Underwear ($12), Ensure ($7), Cat food ($6)

To represent the Baby Boomer set, we first took a trip to Walmart’s adult diaper aisle.

The only thing more humiliating than wearing Depends is wearing XL Depends.

We then followed up with vanilla-flavored Ensure, to help ailing seniors keep the weight on. And since Social Security is projected to run out by 2037, we also included the meal that many retirees are likely to be living on: Friskies cat food.

Defense (19%, or about $24)

Nerf gun ($4), ammo ($20)

The country’s second-largest expense, “Defense” (also known as “Offense”) is responsible for about $240 billion in annual spending. We couldn’t find guns at our local Walmart, but they do sell toy guns—an entire aisle of them!

Nerf: Now Sponsored by the U.S. Military

We remember Nerf making foam footballs, not heavy-duty weaponry, but times have changed. Nerf is apparently now into advanced tactical warfare and foam rubber ballistics.

The Nerf mini-gun was cheap ($4), but they make it up on the replacement darts ($10 per pack). It may not look like much, but imagine multiplying the picture above by 10,000,000,000—enough to kill everyone in the world 187 times. Without reloading.

Unemployment/Welfare (16%, or about $19)

Pizza-flavored Pringles ($8), videogame ($5), Cosmo ($4), Spam ($2)

It was easy to find the items to represent the unemployed: junk food, a videogame, a trashy magazine, and a can of Spam (for when you spend all your unemployment check on the first three items).

Medicare (13%, or about $16)

Preparation H ($6), Gas-X ($3), Ex-Lax ($4), Aspirin ($3)

Most items in Walmart’s medical aisle were too overpriced to fit into our Medicare budget … just like the real medical industry!  We eventually found a few low-cost items, including a fascinating new product called Preparation H Totables.

For the hemorrhoid sufferer on the go.

(You wouldn’t want to confuse these with your lip balm.)

Medicaid and Children’s Health (8%, or about $10)

Tums Kids ($3), St. Joseph’s Baby Aspirin ($2), Children’s enema ($2), Vicks Baby Rub ($3)

The U.S. spends about $100 billion annually on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance program. But where to find medical products for children at Walmart?  Well, how about this entire aisle?

It’s really a mystery how so many kids get addicted to drugs.

Interest on the National Debt (5%, or about $6)

Worthless scratch offs.

Whether it’s on a credit card or the U.S. balance sheet, debt leads to more debt. We currently pay about $60 billion each year just on interest. We chose these (losing) lottery tickets to represent money going down the drain.

Everything Else (19%, or about $24)

Jeff Foxworthy Bargain DVD ($5), Justin Bieber Bargain DVD ($5), The Karate Kid Bargain DVD ($5), Failed Hulk Movie Bargain DVD ($5), Failed Adam Sandler Movie Bargain DVD ($4)

Finally, we searched around for what could represent “everything else” in the U.S. budget: everything from the Department of Education to the $38 billion chunk of pork called “Discretionary Spending.” In short, everything that makes America the proud country that it is.

And then we found it: the discount DVD bin.

America’s cultural trash heap.

For $5 each, we were able to pick up a representative array of movies, like Hulk (Department of Energy), The Karate Kid (Department of State and International Affairs), and The Jeff Foxworthy Show (NASA). And that, friends, is how a country is made.

The Final Tally

It was fascinating to find that the entire U.S. budget could fit in one shopping cart.

With room left over for Canada!

We brought the purchases to the register, praying our calculations were correct. Would we hit the $127 mark, or would we go over?

Sixty cents under!

So you see, it’s not that difficult to come in under budget, after all. Maybe the U.S. government just needs to do more shopping at Walmart.

We put the full amount on our brand new credit card, which now emulated the U.S. national debt perfectly. With one important difference: we’re going to pay off the credit card in full.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to spend the rest of the afternoon reading Cosmo and eating pizza-flavored Pringles. While wearing Depends

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