Republican Presidential Candidates on the National Debt Crisis (ContributorNetwork)

One of the greatest challenges the next president will face is the national debt crisis. According USdebtclock.org, which provides live updates on the national debt and federal budget, the U.S. public debt is now about $15 trillion, or more than $48,000 for person in America.

To make matters worse, the debt is growing at an alarming rate and is compounded by devastating levels of interest. For these reasons, the candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination were asked what their solutions for the debt crisis are at a recent CBS News-sponsored GOP debate.

Here is what they said:

* Michele Bachmann: "We are in a terrible debt spiral, so much so that, just in the month of October, we just added another $203 billion in debt. ? So what would I cut? ?Take a look at Lyndon Baines Johnson's The Great Society. The Great Society has not worked, and it's put us into the modern welfare state. If you look at China, they don't have food stamps. ?They don't have the modern welfare state. And China's growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with The Great Society, and they'd be gone."

* Mitt Romney: "Right now, we're spending about 25 percent of the economy at the federal level. And that has to be brought down to a cap of 20 percent. I'll get that done within my first term, if I'm lucky enough to get elected. How do you do that? One, it's eliminating programs. A lot of programs we like, but we simply can't afford. The first we will eliminate, however, we're happy to get rid of. That's Obamacare. Other programs we like the Endowment for Humanities and Arts. ? These are wonderful features that we have of the government. But we simply can't go out and borrow money from China to pay for them. They're not that essential. In terms of returning programs to the states, Medicaid, a program for the poor, should be returned to the states. Let the states manage it."

* Jon Huntsman: "If we're gonna get this nation moving in the right direction, we need to recognize that debt, as 70 percent of our GDP and moving up, becomes a national security problem. You look where Japan is, well over 100 percent debt to GDP. Greece, 170 percent to GDP. Italy, 120 percent. So you get a sense of where our tomorrow is if we don't tackle the debt and spending. My speech was a very short one on debt and spending. It's three words: The Ryan Plan. Medicaid. ? I'd send back to the states. Education, I wanna move closer to the states. You move education closer to the decision makers, the school boards, the families, you're a whole lot better off."

* Newt Gingrich: "There are four interlocking national security problems. Debt and the deficit's one. Energy is a second one. Manufacturing is a third one. And science and technology's a fourth. And you need to have solutions that fit all four. I helped balance the budget for four consecutive years. I'm not very concerned, if we're serious, what you wanna do is fundamentally reform and overhaul the federal government, fundamentally. While, at the same time, accelerating economic growth to bring unemployment down to four percent. That combination gets you back to a balanced budget."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111201/us_ac/10565311_republican_presidential_candidates_on_the_national_debt_crisis

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