Americans' collective $16 trillion national debt, with about
one-third of it piled up during just the past three and one-half
years under President Barack Obama, has become a major issue in
this year's presidential election. But the amount we owe as a
nation is just part of Americans' debt burden. Before he took
office, Obama promised to reduce unemployment dramatically. He
has failed signally to accomplish that. One ramification of
Obama's failure has been that many young Americans graduating
from college can't find jobs and, in desperation, go back to
school. Many others enroll in higher education for the first
time, also in attempts to make themselves marketable to
potential employers. That has resulted in an explosion of debt
among students and their parents. When Obama took office, the
total student loan debt in the United States was $579 billion.
It now stands at $914 billion - an increase of more than 50
percent. When Obama took office, only about 15 percent of U.S.
households owed student loan debt. T