Friday, May 20, 2011 3:33 am

Facts about the nation's debt were the focus of a Town Hall meeting with 6th District U.S. House of Representative Diane Black held Tuesday at the Cannon County Courthouse.

Congressman Black has been visiting various cities in counties in Tennessee's 6th District through recent town hall meetings.

Some of the facts that Congressman Black shared with the audience included:

1. There is a debt crises in our nation.

2. Debt threatens our job growth, our national security and sovereignty and our nations children.

3.  We have a debt crises because Washington spends too much money, not because Washington taxes too little.

4. The spending is driven by retirement and health security programs.

5. The cost of doing nothing is unacceptable.

Black then showed a graph that stated that total government spending in the Fiscal Year 2010 was 3.5 trillion dollars.

Spending is divided into two categories. Discretionary Spending is 40 percent of government spending. Discretionary spending is government spending that is not required by law such as transportation, health, education and defense programs and systems

The other 60 percent is called Auto-Pilot which is Mandatory Spending and is spending required by law.  Social Security, Medicare, Medical, Housing, Food Stamps programs  are covered by Mandatory Spending. There is no limit on the amount the government is allowed to spend on these programs.

With about 6,000 people retiring per day, Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs social security are the programs that drives the US Debt.

Total debt is 8.4 Trillion Dollars almost half of that is owed to foreign countries such as China, Japan and Europe.

Suggestions that Congressman Black received at other town hall meetings she's conducted to cut debt would be to keep a close eye on waste, fraud and abuse of money spent by the government. Other suggestions include cutting out earmarks which has been done in Congress this fiscal year.and re-evaluate providing financial aid to foreign countries.

After giving the run-down on the debt situation in the United States, Congressman Black opened up the room for questions and comments.  There were a few questions asked ranging from tax loopholes for corporate business , auditing federal reserves and possible solutions to providing clean energy.