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The serious crimes that warrant this punishment include treason, espionage, murder, large-scale drug trafficking, or attempted murder of a witness, juror, or court officer in certain cases. The federal government imposes and carries out a small minority of the death sentences in the U.S., with the vast majority being applied by state ...
The media's ability to reframe capital punishment and, by extension, affect people's support of capital punishment, while still appealing to their pre-existing ideological beliefs that may traditionally contradict death penalty support is a testament to the complexities embedded in the media's shaping of people's beliefs about capital punishment.
Religious groups are widely split on the issue of capital punishment. [288] The Fiqh Council of North America, a group of Muslim scholars in the United States, has issued a fatwa calling for a moratorium on capital punishment in the United States until various preconditions in the legal system are met. [289]
Rising government debt levels have seemingly always been in the headlines. In recent years, U.S. debt levels have become political, with one side of the aisle often refusing to raise the debt limit...
The IMF expects US public debt to continue rising, helping drive government debt worldwide to close to 100% of global gross domestic product by 2029, from 93% last year.
Also, this number excludes state and local debt. According to the OECD, general government gross debt (federal, state, and local) in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2015 was $22.5 trillion (125% of GDP); subtracting out $5.25 trillion for intragovernmental federal debt to count only federal "debt held by the public" gives 96% of GDP.
Because the government spends more money than it collects in tax revenue, lawmakers need to periodically tackle the issue -- a politically difficult task, as many are reluctant to vote for more debt.
By definition, there must therefore exist a government budget deficit so all three net to zero. The government sector includes federal, state and local. For example, the government budget deficit in 2011 was approximately 10% GDP (8.6% GDP of which was federal), offsetting a capital surplus of 4% GDP and a private sector surplus of 6% GDP. [40]