Debt Bomb': this new app shows you exactly how the national debt will affect you

With more and more attention being turned to the national debt, Kyle Smith, an engineering student at UT--Austin, has designed an app called “Debt Bomb” to help Americans better understand the need for financial reform.

“Having built a model of the tax code, I know firsthand just how convoluted our current tax system is and would like to emphasize how desperately we need to simplify it,” Smith said in an email to The Blaze.

So how does the app work?

“Debt Bomb projects the additional taxes an individual household would have to pay if federal taxes were to reflect the full value of federal spending. It personalizes the issue as has never been done before, constructing a convincing narrative with numbers,” said Smith.

“By showing young, tech-savvy Americans how our debt may affect their standard of living, it nudges them to understand the importance of cutting spending,” he adds.

But perhaps the best thing about "Debt Bomb" (in our opinion, at least) is that once users see how the national debt will affect their personal finances, they can contact their elected representatives with the "Contact Congress" feature or they can use the "Tweet President" feature. Users can also Tweet or email their results to friends and family.

Simply put, it’s not just an app that shows you some scary numbers; it encourages you to be proactive.

“I started working on this project about a year ago when I realized that people in my generation need an easy way to understand how their standard of living might be affected by the national debt and deficits,” Smith said. “I thought that an iPhone app would be a great way to reach them.”

“Given the current fiscal path on which America is headed, younger and future taxpayers are going to have to pay a disproportionately large amount for promises that have been made.  It's difficult to appreciate what this means - as bad as the economy is now, things can get worse.”

You can download the app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad for 99 cents here.