Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower...talking about our national debt.

Unless you've been like Rip Van Winkle for the last 12 years, you know the national debt is bigger than Jupiter. But what's not generally known is that the debt's got more attachments on it than a vacuum cleaner, and they're all sucking dollars out of our pockets into theirs.

Who are they?

*Major corporations for one. They hold about $180 Billion of our debt, sucking-up something like...Oh, $12-13 Billion in interest from us every year.

Insurance companies draw interest on another $185 Billion.

Commercial banks, too--they say they don't have money to lend for new businesses--they've invested $270 Billion in the debt.

Foreign corporations and investors own half-a-TRILLION-dollars-worth of our debt--pumping billions in interest payments out of our country.

Also, wealthy Americans -- the coupon clippers and speculators--they hold another $740 Billion of the debt.

So the biggest chunk of what our country owes goes to these five categories of bondholders.

And since we pay them with our tax dollars, what's really taking place here is a MASSIVE REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH from our middle-class families up to some of the wealthiest families in the world.

This is Jim Hightower, quoting Ray Charles, who sings: "Them that's got is them that gets, and I ain't got nothing yet." Sing it for all of us, Ray.