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Show Washington Roundup least part of the debt they . will inherit. And the makeup of this Congress doesn't hold out too much promise for action in this direction. But I am convinced that sooner or later the absurdity of our present course will become apparent. Let's hope it will be soon. principal of oour national people, who look at the $280 debt seems ridiculous to some billion figure and assume that it's impossible to wipe it out. but it isn't impossible - - given enough time and the will to take the necessary action. Supppose we decided to pay off just 1 of our present national debt each year. That would be $2.8 billion per year. At that rate, it would take 100 years to pay off the deb - - but by so doing, we would save $485 billion in interest! And after the 29th year, the payment of both principal interest would be less than what we are now paying on interest alone. Of course, it may be arggued that despite our economy efforts, ef-forts, Federal expenditureh will increase, because of in- By Senator Wallace F. Bennett Do we need to pay off the National Debt? Some people say we don't - - that so long as we continue paying the interest on it, we needn't worry about paying It off. After all, they say, we just owe it to ourselpes. This idea is gaining more support in Washington and throughout the country. As one of those who disagrees, I believe it is my duty to ex. plain why I do. It's true that oour national debt is owed to American a'tlens, vho have loaned, money to their government by buying bonds. But these citizens - and all other citizens - - must pay the interest on that loan through taxes. And at the present time, it is cost- creases in population and possibly pos-sibly greater Defense costs (or because Congress isn't willing to cut down on welfare programs). Possibly so -- but if we do spend more, then we should be prepared to pay the additional out of current in. come, and still make payments on the principal of our national nat-ional debt. Some , people also argue that if we are able to cut spending, all the surplus should be returned re-turned to the taxpayer in the form of tax cuts, instead of paying anything on the debt. I believe this too, is an important im-portant goal. But it's going to cost the taxpayer much more in the long run if we refuse to face up to th edebt. I am inclined to think that perhaps a compromise between these two courses would be best. That is, if we can come up with a surplus, let's allow half of it for tax relief, and make the other half available avail-able for payment on the national nat-ional debt. Maybe all of this is wishful wish-ful thjnkigy Maybe wp Americans anen't yet willing to make the basic moral de-cision de-cision to pay our own way, and relieve our children of at ing the taxpayers more than $8 billion per year. Suppose that we don't pay ' any of the debt off, but that we just continue paying interest. in-terest. And suppose further that the debt doesn't increase, but that we balance the budget bud-get from .here on oout. At the end of a century, we wiirhave paid as interest on the national debt $800 billion!, That's 27 times as much as all the cash now in circulation in the United States! And even then, we will still be stuck with a national debt of $280 billion, since we won't have paid off a penny of it. And all this is assuming that we balance the budget (and it doesn't seem likely that we will, this side of the Millenium) then both the amount paid and the amount still owed will be much greater. It isn't a very bright picture, is it? But there is something we can do. We can make up our minds to get out from under this steadily growing burden lof national debt by doing two things: living within our income, and paying- a little of the principal each year. The idea of paying off the |