Up To Us: Youth Engaged with the National Debt

Guest: Evan Rufrano, Junior at State University of New York at Old Westbury, Winner of the Sixth Annual “Up To Us” National Campus Competition America’s national debt is more than $21 trillion dollars. That large a number is tough to get your head around – even if you check out the US Debt Clock online. There’s a ticker that shows the debt going up at lightning speed as you watch, but it feels like you’re staring at the timer running out on a bomb in a movie. There’s no real sense of what that fast-rising number means or what consequence awaits. College junior Evan Rufrano joined with some of his classmates at the State University of New York at Old Westbury to create a way to get young people thinking about the national debt. Their efforts won the annual “Up to Us” competition sponsored by a bipartisan coalition of advocacy groups concerned about America’s fiscal health.