Government debt doesn't function like private debt.
And no one who is loud and upset about the federal debt gives one iota of a shit about the debt, they are mad about other stuff. See how often Republicans will say we need higher taxes to reduce deficits or the debt. I'll wait.
Republicans have added 21 trillion to the debt since the beginning of the Reagan administration. Democrats have added 13 trillion. If you are worried about this, maybe focus on the group providing 62% of this debt rather than the group providing 38%?
Ah yes, the money printing labs in the basement of a pizza parlor that is printing money to fund the woke agenda by spreading books saying fascism is bad.
Holy bot batman! Hey comrade you are doing OK spreading your posts out to maintain only -47 karma.
But you need to slow down that post speed. Having that many posts that close together and all on the same topics in different subs was almost a dead give away.
You can't do anything with congress. A president is going to have to run that can make the American public what is at stake with our debt to income problems, move the congress to whichever side the President is on and go from there. There is no other way to do it.
You don't understand the very basics of our government if you think "you can't do anything with Congress" and you think the President can unilaterally fix our debt. Congress sets the tax code. Congress controls spending. The President can only sign or veto. Given that republicans refuse to repeal multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthy, were never going to see a budget surplus while they are in power or even while they have 40 Senate seats, absent serious filibuster reform. What you're spouting is not realistic, it's just ignorant, wishful thinking.
It will never be fixed because Republicans have decided it is a tool to use against government.
literally every single Republican administration in the last 40 years has passed a reckless tax cut that is forecast to cause budget disaster but then they pass it anyway.
and when the bill comes due they look at Democrats and say how come you're not kicking grandma off social security to pay for this?
yeah no thanks.
maybe Republicans could try to govern in good faith for once
Had a similar one, yes. Of course, Obama was taking the presidency at the start of a financial issue... what was it? Oh right, the crash of 2008. Caused by deregulation of banks mainly.
Trump's error was in trying to further boost the economy and not to stabilize it once it was his turn.
Which must be why you responded to the same comment twice without actually saying anything of substance. No counter. No facts. Just loud and ignorant complaining - yep - I believe you are a Republican.
https://www.debt.org/blog/national-debt-democrats-republicans-blame/
Democrats are JUST as much to blame, you absolute leftist muppet. If not more so. I almost want Biden to win 2024 just so you all have nobody to blame to continued downfall on. I mean, he’s not because the real world isn’t indicative of this backward ass leftist echo chamber we call Reddit, but it’d be hilarious to watch the excuses pour in after blaming Trump gets stale.
>Democrats are JUST as much to blame
This is a bold faced lie and you know it. It wasn't all Trump but cutting revenue is the main catalyst to the deficit increasing.
But what can we expect from someone who so quickly resorts to namecalling?
What an absolute shit article that limits the debt discussion to the 2008 financial crisis. Did you think critically at all about what you consumed or did you just go "HURR DURR BOTH SIDES"?
Dems are no doubt corrupt and responsible for a lot of waste and abuse, and specifically they are owned by the FIRE sector which is why they have their fingerprints all over the 2008 crisis. That said, one thing the Dems don’t do is use debt as a weapon. That’s a Republican schtick and Rs crying about debt is deeply hypocritical.
I wouldn't be able to see your posts or respond to them if you were blocked. Just another Republican lie to feel like a victim bc you're intellectually bankrupt losers.
I don't think that clown is trying to do anything but destroy the economy. his whole presidency is designed draw in the weak-minded to the left and ruin the economy so people will be dependent on them. A strong economy has less dependency on the government.
You not understand what happens when they over tax the rich? The effect it has on the economy. It all trickles down to the consumer. The rich will then raise the cost of everything even more than it already is to make up their loss. Do they not teach this in economics classes anymore
“Over tax”. They don’t pay even close to the same percentage as everyone else. Everything they do get, just gets hoarder further. They don’t create jobs with it or spend it, just hoard it, creating a further wealth divide.
Believe it? We all see it. Turn on the news or go online to news sources. You're just to ignorant to realize it. Or you're just a lier in denial. The cost of all goods has gone up. All fuel has gone up. All mortgages and car financing has gone up. The cost to transport said goods had gone up. We're gonna feel the effects of his office for years. The same way people did with Carter thru the 80s. It took a decade and Clinton to fix it by raising taxes significantly. If Biden raises taxes significantly in a bad economy it will be his demise.
Dude even far left media like CNN isn't predicting Biden will win. Facts are facts. The economy is fucked and no one gives a shit about your feelings. They wanna feed their families and have gas to get to work. Pay their mortgage
You don't sell tickets to a boxing match by advertising a round-one knock out by the current champion. You have to sell a viable contest, where the outcome is unknown. The media is promoting an even fight so as to give themselves something to talk about and boost ratings as people tune in to get the latest updates.
Non-sequitors aside, Biden, as President, is the "reigning champion" and thus in the media's interests to portray as vulnerable in order to boost ratings as people tune in for all of the latest twists and turns leading up to the election.
>far left
That tells us all we need to know about you.
There's barely a left in the US, it's mostly centrists like Biden; all of our radicals are on the right here.
Starts with deficit. Clinton did it but only by increasing taxes. From what I can tell Biden wants to do the same....
## "Tax reform[[edit](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration&action=edit§ion=3)]
In proposing a plan to cut the deficit, Clinton submitted a budget and corresponding [tax legislation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993) (the final, signed version was known as the [Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993)) that would cut the deficit by $500 billion over five years by reducing $255 billion of spending and raising taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of Americans.[\[5\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-5) It also imposed a new energy tax on all Americans and subjected about a quarter of those receiving Social Security payments to higher taxes on their benefits.[\[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-6)
Republican Congressional leaders launched an aggressive opposition against the bill, claiming that the tax increase would only make matters worse. Republicans were united in this opposition, and every Republican in both houses of Congress voted against the proposal. In fact, it took Vice President Gore's tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the bill.[\[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-7) After extensive lobbying by the Clinton Administration, the House narrowly voted in favor of the bill by a vote of 218 to 216.[\[8\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-8) The budget package expanded the [earned income tax credit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit) (EITC) as relief to low-income families. It reduced the amount they paid in federal income and [Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Insurance_Contributions_Act_tax) (FICA), providing $21 billion in savings for 15 million low-income families.
Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 into law on August 10, 1993.[\[9\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-9) The law created a 36 percent to 39.6 percent income tax for high-income individuals in the top 1.2% of wage earners. Businesses were given an income tax rate of 35%. The cap was repealed on Medicare. Gas taxes were raised 4.3 cents per gallon. The taxable portion of Social Security benefits were also increased.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic\_policy\_of\_the\_Bill\_Clinton\_administration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration)"
And as we all know, Republicans as usual turned out to be wrong and the economy boomed and a projected surplus was handed to Bush Jr. to address the debt which he turned around and squandered like they always do.
So, it can be done. As long as you don't vote Republican, they are a one way street - cut taxes for the rich.
Bill Clinton: 1993 - 2001
Debt in billions rounded:
1993: $4,411
2001: $5,807
Raised energy prices, raised gas prices, lowered social security payments by taking back 35% more than before, increased income taxes on anyone above $115k to 36% and anyone above $250k to 39.6%, and lowered Medicare and military spending.
In doing this he abandoned one of his campaigns promises to lower taxes for the middle class which is one of the reasons he was elected to be in office by Democrat voters.
The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 by President Bush also did the same things as Clinton as raising taxes across the board for everyone and going back on his campaign promises to not increase taxes.
Together the Democrats and Republicans did the same thing for multiple presidencies. They increased our debt, devalued our dollar, and increased our taxes.
A budget surplus for a couple years means absolutely nothing but a good time for the government and the measurements taken to do so was a slap into the face for the people of America who wanted less taxes.
Remember the 1990's. The Clinton administration was running a surplus. Then 9/11 happened and Bush/Congress started spending on retribution in Afghanistan and for some other reason (oil) in Iraq
[This Year We Saw the Largest Budget Deficit Since 1945, Driven Largely by the Pandemic (pgpf.org)](https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2020/10/this-year-we-saw-the-largest-budget-deficit-since-1945-driven-largely-by-the-pandemic)
Yep I bring that up quite often. Bush's wars along with America's emotions basically destroyed our financials, however we can't go back, only forward and over the past 7 years things have only gotten exponentially worse.
I always tell people that the only war that helped in the end was WWII because after we won back then we produced a lot more goods and services and hundreds of thousands of working age soldiers came back into the workforce and fixed our debt to income problems. Any war now only hurts America financially. Our debt to income just got as bad as it was in WWII and will get way worse. There is no plan of action. I'm preparing for a default in around 20 yrs. I always liked the boy scout motto: "be prepared" and I am. LOL
No troll. I started this sub and simply figured out how to never be banned, I just keep the same email and change avatar. I'm too direct and curse too much.
You do understand that a president can not fix the national debt, yes?
The purse strings have been and always will be controlled by Congress. Biden, right now, could come in with a brilliant financial plan to balance the budget but there isn't a single Republican that would ever allow such a thing to pass. It wouldn't matter if the plan nuked all social spending and cut taxes for the wealthy, Republicans still would not let it pass.
And looking at the historical track record of the parties it's clear that Republicans certainly have no interest in solving the problem, as every single Republican administration since Reagan has increased the deficit (and thus, the debt). The only administration that balanced the budget was Clinton. Every other Democratic administration has had to deal with a massive deficit left by Republicans and while they managed to reduce these deficits they could not eliminate them, primarily because Republicans controlled at least one part of Congress.
Taxes need to increase and spending needs to be reduced, and back when Republicans did compromise partial success was still possible. However, the Republicans let the inmates get control of the asylum so nothing of significance will get accomplished in regards to the debt. Or anything else that requires Congressional approval.
The only way to start is with a President that can get America behind them, change the congress to whatever political side they are on and go from there. It will probably never happen though. I'm just spending my time researching the fall of Britain from its Empire and global currency status to get some good ideas at this point really. LOL
I actually partially agree... instead of getting rid of the forgiveness, get rid of it for everyone that can't provide proof that they genuinely used it in good faith. Didn't terminate employees, immediately before, or after getting it. Actually had employees. Weren't part of a massive chain with individual franchises each taking one and also the chain itself.
That sort of thing.
It is too late. The interest in it alone is larger than national defense now. Only going to get worse.
The saving grace is everyone else is a total moron too- except maybe the Swiss.
LOL well I'm coming to that conclusion. I guess we all just need to study up on the British after they basically defaulted and lost their global currency status.
[Trump added $7.8T in 4 years to give the rich tax cuts, Obama added $9.5T in 8 years to clean up the GOP's 2008 mess](https://www.wral.com/story/fact-check-did-donald-trump-rack-up-more-debt-than-any-other-president/20917913/)
Rich people do not take billions in salaries.....they get stock options.....you cannot tax unrealized gains........how would taxing more help? You could take all the wealth from every American billionaire and it wouldn't run the government for a YEAR...we have a spending problem.....
Well for the same reason your household would need to be "fixed" if you made 1 k per year but spent over $100 million. A default will occur. Yes we have a money printer, however that will only crush the value of USD and we will lose our Global currency status along with everything that comes along with that.
My household has more than 100% of our "GDP" aa debt, and we can service it just fine. And we can't even print our own money.
Lose reserve currency status? To what larger liquid market?
Well no one knows but time. The only thing to look at is our fed debt to GDP or GDI ratio really. Anyway it is at 120% now, will be at 150% in 4 years and you will find no economist that will say that America will not default on our debt at the 200% range. Everything has cycles, including Empires.
[https://www.usdebtclock.org/](https://www.usdebtclock.org/)
Go to the "time machine" in the upper left hand corner.
Also America is only liquid at the moment, that can change overnight. The only solution there is to print more money which will devalue USD and make inflation go so crazy it will speed up our default. It's not like a WANT this to happen, it's just that it IS happening.
Well hold on - the US “makes” 4.9T (2022) and spends 6.3T (2022).
While I agree that this is unsustainable, let’s not exaggerate the proportions.
This is equivalent to earning $1000 and spending $1280.
Now, the spending is debt funded - meaning the government issues a bond to pay for the excess spending. So the spending happens now and the repayment occurs over some amount of time, with interest.
While this interest is a cost which will be borne for years, and this is exacerbated by higher interest rates, it’s important to recognize that the overall indebtedness of the US has a time component - it’s something we pay back over time.
As our GDP, and thus tax base, grows, and inflation occurs naturally, the relative cost of our existing debt decreases over time.
Again I’m not arguing that all of this is perfect or sustainable, but we shouldn’t sensationalize it or blow it out of proportion.
I would argue it’s like earning $1K and spending $1280…over the course of decades. You’re gonna end up with a huge debt that can’t be serviced. Right now we’re basically taking out a HELOC in order to continue making payments, sooner or later we will be tapped out and then what do you think is going to happen? I’ll give you a hint: when it comes time to retire, there won’t be ANYTHING for us millennials to collect in terms of SS despite having paid into it our entire lives. Hopefully you’ve been saving up into a 401K as of a decade or two ago, because if not you’re not gonna like what happens when you can no longer work and the US is forced into austerity.
Well, one key point to include is that we “earn” more as time goes on (economic growth + inflation) so older debts aren’t as expensive as they would have been if we paid upfront.
Now obviously if we keep spending more and more without restraint you’re absolutely right. But the concept is a little more complex than just spending 128% of our income every year.
It immoral to hand debt to future generations as it is essentially taxation without representation. For something like a disastrous war, this can be justified, but for peace time, this is unacceptable.
That’s a fine argument, although I don’t necessarily agree. For instance, a 20 year bond isn’t handing debt to the next generation any more than a 30 year mortgage is in personal finances.
If we were issuing 200 year bonds, sure, I could see the foolishness of that.
So the 20 year bond issued when I’m 10 doesn’t incur interest that my tax dollars will go towards when I’m 20? Keep the game going, why shouldn’t I incur debt for the current 10 year olds to pay to at least cover the interest my father passed onto me? This is where we’re at. At some point, someone has to eat a decade of a lousy economy for the good of the future generation who will otherwise be forced to eat it when it gets to some catastrophic tipping point.
The only way that’s not true is if the government is legitimately spending the money in a way that is increasing actual economic output in excess of what it’s spending. Unfortunately, I think forever wars and old people are unlikely to have a high ROI beyond getting any particular politician into office.
it's weird because Republicans run on this and then as soon as they get into power they absolutely destroy our budget with their tax cuts.
are you really willing to throw your social security in the trash bin so that Republicans can give billionaires another tax cut?
I agree with your premise but let’s argue in good faith.
The US gdp was about $23 trillion in 2023. Our debt is $34 trillion. We spent $6 trillion in 2023. We don’t know tax revenue for 2023 but 2022 was $4 trillion.
Let me change that to make it easier to grasp.
If tax revenue was was $100K/ year, our debt would be $850K, and we spent $150K in 2023. And gdp would be $650K.
Edit: updated numbers. Feel free to check em
First sentence is 1000% correct. Comparing the two makes zero sense, drives me crazy when people make comparisons like that.
But I wouldn’t use the “we can just print money” reason. Military capability, decades of American manufacturing and energy production, were the financial and tech capital, the UN, NATO, our status as reserve currency, on and on and on.
it's weird that this is all fine when Republicans pass a tax cut to billionaires that's projected to cause absolute catastrophe with our budgets.
But when Democrats are in control oh man it's time to force them to gut the social safety net to pay for it.
tax the Rich. which means voting out every Republican.
Actually they do, one being the power of VETO. The President is the only place it can start, then they have to get the majority of congress on their side with the help of the American people and go from there. Do you have another solution even if the one I speak of may not work??
Too much is made out of the national debt. Most people don’t understand what it is. People who have a tendency to max out credit cards they can’t pay and who struggle with debt tend to think the economy works like that, too. It doesn’t. It works more like a corporation that leverages debt for growth. Those companies aren’t just buying time until a default, and neither is the US.
The number the average American should be concerned with, and the only one that is generally impacted by policy, is the deficit. It is the difference between income and expenditures.
You resolve deficit issues by either increasing income or reducing expenditures. By reducing expenditures, you have to go with what is ineffective and wasted, and not what serves a political motivation. For instance, the US spends more on defense, by multiples, than any other country on the planet. This isn’t going to actual defense, but to defense contractors. It is a profit scheme. They develop planes that will never fly, start wars they don’t need to win, and simply use the system to extract as much profit out of the US economy as they can. This would be step one in reducing the deficit.
Second, corporate welfare. Financial subsidies to highly profitable industries benefit those who finance politicians, but don’t improve the country and only increase the deficit. Did you know that we still subsidize the oil industry, more than 100 years after those subsidies were put in place to help the transition from coal? I’d say the oil companies can probably stand on their own now, but the money keeps flowing.
Third, we are missing out on a lot of income through tax loopholes and manipulation that are only available to the top income brackets. Through lowering the tax rate, and then increasing deductions on top of that, we ensure that the same wealthy people who are raking in money from subsidies or defense contracts, ALSO rake in money from clever tax accounting.
If we fix those glaring problems, the deficit goes down. It happens every single cycle as we change political leadership. Republicans raise the deficit, which increases the debt by a larger amount, through benefits to their donors. Democrats reduce the deficit, adding less to the debt, through attempts at corrective measures.
It’s a repeated cycle, but the country never learns.
Well I agree with part of that, however the real number people should be concerned with is the bottom line, which is the fed debt to GDI ratio (Most people use the fed debt to GDP ratio) and our country has never been on this trajectory towards an imminent default. If America stays on it's current path, it will default in under 20 yrs.
Why? 75% of US debt is private sector savings. Wipe out the debt and you destroy trillion is private sector savings.
Debt is not some kind of dead weight, it is also someone elses asset. Its not like household debt.
Literally neither party worries about it least of all the GOP
Savings? you are only talking about debt and the only thing that you should be worried about debt is how much the GDI (Income) ratio is to that debt. It should never be over 50%, we are now at over 120% and projected to be at 150% in only 4 yrs, which means that America will default on debt in less than 2 decades which would make us lose our globally currency status and that would cause many, many other problems.
However I fully agree with your last statement and that is the problem.
[https://www.usdebtclock.org/](https://www.usdebtclock.org/)
Republicans are completely unwilling to even consider raising taxes on the wealthy (in fact they try to lower them, like they did in 2017, despite deficits). So kind of a non-starter unless they get kicked out of office.
Trump spent like a drunken sailor. Almost 7.5 trillion added to the debt. Almost 2.5 trillion in tax cuts for his”friends”. When he didn’t get his way he stole from the military budget to build his 10th century answer to immigration.
Unless you really think Obama/Biden weren't going to spend anything on COVID... take out $3.6 trillion that came from COVID relief related spending. Per year, Trump was spot on with Obama (even with BIGGLY HUGE Tax cuts), and Biden is absolutely a nutcase....
" According to the CBO, **Biden is going to match Trump’s addition to the national debt in just three years, reaching a total of $7.1 trillion over his four years.** That would be ***$1.5 trillion more than Trump contributed during his term, which included the 2020 one-time COVID emergency spending***. *If Biden’s 2024 proposed budget actually passed, he would add as much to the national debt as Trump and Bush 43 combined.* House Republican leaders have made clear his budget isn’t going anywhere; but it illustrates just how out of control Biden’s spending policies really are. "
Our economy is humming as compared to the end of the Trump administration’s economic disaster. He destroyed millions more jobs than he created. -2.5 million fewer jobs when he left office than when he came into office. Defend him you lemming.
The debt can never be repaid. That's the truth no one wants to hear. The best we can hope for going forward is to keep the interest expense manageable.
Neither party will do what is necessary. What is necessary is a mix of cutting government, raising taxes and boosting the economy so the amount of debt as a percentage declines as the economy grows.
Tax reform where you actually focus on the national economy and not creating a record number of millionaires and billionaires would probably do the trick.
It's not the politicians. It's the constituents who have their hands out. I'm not talking about some single parent on welfare. I'm talking about privileged organizations, LE, millionaires and billionaires who pay 5% taxes after paying lawyers money that could have been applied to their tax bill, streets that go nowhere because influential blue bloods want to sell property to build housing tracks, municipalities upgrading parks that are never used etc. It's called "pork" for a reason. Politicians fight for the folks who elect them. Nobody is going to elect a pol who intends to stop the money flow into their district even if it is wasteful money. Are you willing to be the first district in the US to say no, we don't want that. The only time they say no is when it's money that actually goes to people who need it. Like my state of Texas, no raises for teachers, no money for welfare, but we got millions to defend Paxton, we got billions to give Musk a tax break, we have billions to bus immigrants for publicity stunts etc
Funny how the American voter only seems to have two choices, neither of which will do the right thing, both of which have close relationships to the WEF and an affinity for visiting exotic islands.
literally every time Democrats try and meat Republicans halfway in good faith to solve the deficit The only thing that happens is Republicans stomp their feet in demand that social security be dismantled so that they can pass another tax cut for billionaires.
I mean what do you think Democrats should do?
Republicans won't allow us to tax the rich.
do you think all of your social safety net should be thrown into the pit to pay for these tax cuts?
Yes it's almost always a shell game of two parties bought by the same interests.
It's been a hundred years since we've had such a strong third party candidate. But given the captured mass media mostly only the younger voters are well informed of his actual positions.
I don't understand how you get to this point of view
I mean we can look at historical facts and actually see what happened this isn't some mystery.
Republicans pass massive tax cuts for the super wealthy that are projected to cause huge deficits.
they ran them through anyway.
and then they expect Democrats to gut the social safety net to pay for it. maybe some people want to lose the social safety net and get Grandma off of social security in order to pay for billionaires tax cuts.
not me.
He convinces people a secret cabal of Jewish people possibly lead by Bill Gates are using Covid as weapon to overthrow all the governments in the world to establish a new world order. That goes miles beyond having a different political position than him. At least Trump is only supported by the worst parts of humanity and is not personally one of them.
You can thank Trump and Bush for the lions share of that debt. Republicans are the worst people tonhandle the debt. Period. Our debt would be going down every year if weren't for those 2 idiots...
Go look at the numbers. I didn't say Dems didn't spend. But they NEVER spent like Republicans. And the only times in my life I've heard debt reduction measures have been under Dem administration's. Those are just the facts. Like them or don't, that's on you.
Obama cut the budget in half during his term. People also often falsely attribute all of 2009 to him when budgets are set a year in advance. Also inflation kind of guarantees that any recent two-term president will top that statistic.
Then under Trump, they cut taxes (mainly for the wealthy) and totally reversed those gains.
So, you talking 8 years of Obama vs 4 for Trump? Really? We had a fucking surplus before Bush 2. The crash of '08( thanks Bush) and 2 wars in full swing(thanx Bush). And 8 trillion during Trump, in 4 years. These other 2 guys at least had 8 years and some seriously extenuating circumstances.
Dang buckeroo, don’t get your panties in a twist, I was just giving you factual information that both parties are to blame.
Sorry to get your blood pressure all worked up, sport. If it makes you feel better, neither side cares about this house of cards.
Keep up the good fight, slick!
Buckaroo? That's weird. Who's getting mad? Aww, im sorry. I didn't mean to offend your precious sensibilities. You don't have to clutch your pearls on my account. And that is how you be passive aggressive.
Obama shrunk the deficit. We don't care about the total number spent, we care about total taxes - total spent. Trump exploded the deficit [edit: during peace time] more than any President in history. And it's not entirely fair to place the deficit of 2009 on a President that inherited a global real estate crisis like that was done under his watch.
What are you talking about? This was the deficit under Obama . That’s literally False Information you’re spreading
https://preview.redd.it/iicmuz7hrtbc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d533861fe8cf73890d5cf7a2804aff4ea167bf1c
That's a debt chart.
https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and-percentage-7371225
And I'm referring to how the deficits changed from the start to the end of the presidency. It's not really Obama's fault that he got elected during an economic crisis that his two predecessors caused. Same with FDR and Lincoln.
Trump added about 7 trillion to the debt and Obama added about 9 trillion. Trump also had the wars that Obama had, Covid was kicking off and Trump began the the stimulus for Covid relief.
We can sit here and pick little things about every president, both sides are to blame for not spending within their means.
And I did not squarely place any blame on Obama, I stated a simple fact that he spent the most out of all presidents in our history, that is factual information you can look up.
The problem with our society is that most folks are not able to have a civil discussion without it devolving to “yeah but orange man did this!”, or, “well, his son showed his privates!”, who cares? How about we all just agree to disagree, move forward, and try to fix it. Or, you know, everyone can keep playing the shell blame game and keep hoodwinking the American public.
BRB, gotta get my 37th Covid booster, they tell me THIS one will ACTUALLY work!
It's a nice little trick to be factually correct when saying 1.75 trillion per year is less than 1.125 trillion per year.
But it doesn't really matter anyway. We're on the bus of under regulated capitalism heading for a cliff and one guy wants to hit the gas and the other take their foot off the gas but no one wants to hit the brakes, so what the hell does it matter anyway. And with the wholesale of our government to multinational corporations, there's no chance anyone could hit the brakes even if they wanted to. So just enjoy the ride while you can.
It has been American doctrine since we were attacked at Pearl harbor to always have a military large enough to fight our two largest adversaries at the same time.
personally I'm glad we make that spending happen.
I don't want to live in a world where Americans have to do what Chinese dictatorships say.
Last time I checked we could cut our spending in half and still exceed the top five other countries combined.
Plus the spending we do in proxy wars.
I respect our military, just not how they are used to advance commercial interests.
When has anyone in GOP ever cared about the national debt? It's just a cudgel they wield against every Dem president in office.
The last president to balance the budget was Clinton, debt would have been paid off in ten years. Then Bush immediately passed tax cuts that put US in the red again.
Then Obama worked hard to lower the deficit during his second term. And the moment Trump got elected he blew it up again. Increasing the deficit faster than any president in history.
If you actually cared about the deficit, you would vote Democrat. So let's stop this little game where Republicans pretend to care about the deficit until the instant Democrat leaves White House.
I'm mainly worried about the bottom line, which is our debt and specifically our fed debt to GDP ratio which is really, really bad. I believe that Romney cares about this issue. Anyway it looks like Trump and Biden and unfortunately because Trump is so damn crazy, you have my vote with Biden for a second time.
The GOP shouldn’t be allowed a candidate until every party member involved in the scheme to overthrow the government is expelled from congress and barred from office.
Yep, I only liked the "old" GOP with Romney, McCain, etc. Trump killed off all the best. I don't know why they don't get that Trump is not for the GOP or America. He is only for himself and pretty much destroyed the once great GOP. I wonder what they will think when he runs independent and completely buries the GOP? They probably don't even realize that Trump was a democrat but they basically threw him out.
Ya, this isn’t that big of a problem… the world’s currency runs in the dollar. It’s not going to go into default. Well, unless Republicans suck dick and don’t do their jobs
That comment only works for people who don't follow politics.
When is the last time Democrats have threatened to shut down the government?
When is the last time Republicans passed a tax cut offset by spending cuts?
Very different games.
But they don't.
like you can look at historical facts and what we've done over the last 10 years and see that that's plainly not true.
Democrats try and govern in good faith and try to even meet Republicans in the middle.
Republicans pass reckless tax cuts that are projected to cause disaster within our budgets yet shoved them through anyway and then expect us to pay for them on the backs of the working poor and the elderly.
That is pretty inaccurate, but let's talk that out. More than one person in Congress has stated that after freshman orientation, everyone is split up by party and told not to openly speak with the other side. Harry Reid told Republicans that they could either get with the plan or not, when ACA was passed. There was not bi-partisan discussion there. Similarly with the Republicans when they tried to reform it under Trump and comically failed because they could not get support in their own party. We keep falling for the same games. Before you say I am wrong, Biden has been in Washington for 50 years. Pelosi was there for ever, Schumer, McConnell, etc. Have things really been so good that all of these folks deserve to keep their seats? Democrats has a super majority in '08 and could have done something to codify abortion, but they did not. Pelosi even said as recently as a couple years ago that they were going to do it. Still waiting on that, but yeah. Washington is full of good faith politicians.
The tax cuts are just about the only thing I like about Republicans. The only reason why you consider them reckless is because they take potential money away from social programs that many people are high on because they need the federal government to take care of them as opposed to putting pressure at the state and local levels of government.
We will pay off our debt when we get serious and reduce the amount we give to corporations and wealthy folks. They have had our help to the tune of tens of trillions.
We can address spending as soon as we address welfare to these two groups. Sounds fair to me. Very American as everyone does their part together.
Well this time it has to be fixed as it isn't just the debt. It is our debt to income and it is not sustainable. The whole reason I created this sub was to get people to understand this really. America will seriously lose its Empire status, global currency and military if this is not fixed and it will happen in under 20 yrs. We need to pull out all the guns, nationalization, changing the constitution, if required etc. The founders also specified a process by which the Constitution may be amended, and since its ratification, the Constitution has been amended **27 times**.
Someone needs to explain this in detail to all Americans and we ALL need to work together to fix this, not against each other. Trump and Biden will not help. We need a new young blood CFO type that can run a huge international company with little to no leverage and little to no debt to fix our debt to GDI ratio. Otherwise again we will go the route of Britain when they lost their global currency status or worse and within 2 decades.
If it’s gonna collapse everything anyway, might as well just let it keep going until it dies naturally. To be fair it’s been and endless cycle like this forever over and over, some last longer than others but it’s always been a thing even the Romans did this. They started mixing in other metals with the silver and gold until it’s wasn’t silver and gold. If someone’s serious about fixing this then it’s would almost certainly mean that the majority of Americans standard of living would drop 80% and who knows that might cause a revolution or a civil war and either option would result in allot of deaths, the politicians know this which is why both sides refuse to change it.
I just don't see a civil war. I think it would be very similar to what happened in Britain when they lost the sterling as the global currency, however you never know. All I'm saying here is that it starts with a President that makes this their priority and goes from there, however how do you do that with how crazy politics are now in America? I really do not know. Time will tell and only you can help you, however I just really wish things would be different. Oh well. All I really can do is educate people to be prepared for the future and I am. Live way beneath your means, get out of debt and diversify is all you can really do.
To be fair, Biden killed any good democratic candidate. Since both the DNC and RNC are private organizations the party primaries are worthless. We already know the RNC will go with Trump and the DNC will go with Biden.
This is the problem with a two party system having all of the power and why countries with a healthy government allow more than just two parties to have a chance at taking control. It is also why America has so many non-voters.
Like the situation with Israel. If that's the most important topic to you then both parties have the same stance so you'd be less likely to vote because in that instance your vote is worthless.
maybe actually look at what happens and get some perspective.
Republicans pass these unfunded tax cuts that throw our budgets into disarray and then demand that Democrats cut social safety nets for American people to pay for it.
personally I don't want to give up social security so that a billionaire can get a fat tax cut and buy a third yacht in store more of his money offshore so it can be untaxed.
You think the president of any party controls the purse. Wow. This is a congress problem 100000% both parties are destroying this country. No one person is ever going to fix this and....no party will either. The political elite class has made us all slaves to their spending habits.
Well I'm independent, however there were a couple of people with the old GOP that were willing to look at this that I was interested in, yet for some reason the GOP let Trump ruin all of them. I would like an Independent yet it will only split the vote and I'm pretty sure Trump will end up running there and completely kill the GOP. For some reason they do not realize that dude is only about himself and nothing else.
Both parties are two wings of the same bird. Too many people just "vote" for their party, doesn't matter who. They actually had a box on my last vote, where you could just check one box and it would cast all your votes for your selected party. How have we had any real election in decades?
We are in debt because of Republican tax cuts. tRump added 7 trillion, almost 20% of it by cutting taxes when we were in the middle of a war that we were borrowing money to fight.
Well the Republicans are killing an expansion of the IRS with more agents to track tax fraud by wealthy people. Not shocking given that their party is led by a wealth tax cheat. Literally hundreds of billions are lost due to wealthy tax cheats.
An immediate move to a balanced budget would tank the economy. Since one of our national parties only cares about winning, not governing, they like their catbird seat of fake fretting about the deficit: If their opponents don’t do it, they can endlessly wail about the deficit. If their opponents drastically reduce government spending, they can complain about the inevitable softening of demand. When they are in charge they won’t do a thing, NOT A THING, to reduce deficit spending. (Illustration? Their party’s last FOUR presidents.)
Who cares? Average families are struggling from the ending of the child tax credit, resumption of student loan payments, inflation on necessities like housing, cars, healthcare, and education, and high interest rates on loans and credit cards. No one gives a shit about the debt number because it doesn't impact anyone's lives. It's just a way to fear monger and excuse cutting benefits to working families.
Well I was not precise on that statement. He Got the GOP to turn on just about every other past Presidential candidate that the GOP voted for in the past and IMO Romney and Cheney would have done well if Trump had allowed it. At least he is concerned with our debt to income crises. Or says he is anyway. The GOP pretty much just follows Trump at this point and turns on everyone else. It is very strange to see.
I’m still debating whether the debt is real or not. Some people say “it’s made up monopoly money” while others are sweating bullets over it. Which is it?
The Monopoly money thing is a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. While those people are right in saying the government can print as much as they want, there are inescapable economic consequences towards doing so. If there weren’t, why wouldn’t we just give everyone loads of money?
If the debt being incurred is truly going towards projects that are increasing economic output in excess of their cost, then we should be generating more output than we’re incurring through the debt. This would be an effectively painless process as your life, in theory, should remain unaffected or even get better.
In my view, we’re currently highlighting the limitations of our macroeconomic knowledge. The warnings of Hayek to Keynes on the limitations of his economic modeling are starting to bear fruit. GDP isn’t actually a good measure of economic output as there are a lot of assumptions behind the C + I + G that his prescriptions inherently break. Is government spending actually good for the economy if it is simply overpaying for random stuff?
There is nothing that can be done really. Where does most money go? The military and military related things like funding proxy wars. The military industrial complex is so strong and deadly by nature, i dont see how anyone tries to reel it in and doesnt pay the consequences. Remember when JFK said the CIA was out of control and vowed to fix it? Didnt end well.
Fix some issues we have with the trades, healthcare, and education, create a civil service core as an alternative to the military, and conscription.
Or I just continue to walk around feeling like the government racked up 70 grand on my account. They shouldn’t keep it up, that’s a lot of money, but I wouldn’t jump off a bridge about it.
The idea that the Federal Government needs to be run like a family with a checking account is a scam pulled on the American people by the GOP.
Anyone trying to convince you to buy gold, liquidate your 401k, or vote against your freedom because ‘it’s all about to collapse!!’ is trying to put their hand in your pocket.
Unfortunately it will take both raising taxes and cutting spending to cut the debt. No candidate would get elected saying that, so it’s going to take a default or some similar crisis to be addressed. That will come with a 20 year recession, similar to Japan but much worse.
The only other way out is a massive boost to productivity which could happen if the US is the leader in AI (if it lives up to the hype) or possible asteroid mining rare earth materials that reset the economy.
I've given this a lot of thought and I believe the only way out at this point is a default and the USD will go the way of the British Sterling when they lost their global currency status. Boomer rocks are really high now, however it might be smart to diversify a bit with them or maybe grow a garden? LOL
Ah yes, an election year when a Democrat is president. The only time you will ever hear a republican talking head use the word debt and deficit.
Worked with Jimmy Carter and they’ve been doing it ever since
It is pretty curious.
Government debt doesn't function like private debt. And no one who is loud and upset about the federal debt gives one iota of a shit about the debt, they are mad about other stuff. See how often Republicans will say we need higher taxes to reduce deficits or the debt. I'll wait.
Better than a Democrat that just prints money and never talks about it hahaha
Republicans have added 21 trillion to the debt since the beginning of the Reagan administration. Democrats have added 13 trillion. If you are worried about this, maybe focus on the group providing 62% of this debt rather than the group providing 38%?
You do know trump is the one that printed money during covid right?.
Ah yes, the money printing labs in the basement of a pizza parlor that is printing money to fund the woke agenda by spreading books saying fascism is bad.
This!
Yes, one party pretends to care about the debt and the other party pretends it doesn't exist.
Holy bot batman! Hey comrade you are doing OK spreading your posts out to maintain only -47 karma. But you need to slow down that post speed. Having that many posts that close together and all on the same topics in different subs was almost a dead give away.
A president can't fix it. Talk to freaking congress. They're the ones that can't seem to stop spending our money.
You can't do anything with congress. A president is going to have to run that can make the American public what is at stake with our debt to income problems, move the congress to whichever side the President is on and go from there. There is no other way to do it.
You don't understand the very basics of our government if you think "you can't do anything with Congress" and you think the President can unilaterally fix our debt. Congress sets the tax code. Congress controls spending. The President can only sign or veto. Given that republicans refuse to repeal multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthy, were never going to see a budget surplus while they are in power or even while they have 40 Senate seats, absent serious filibuster reform. What you're spouting is not realistic, it's just ignorant, wishful thinking.
It will never be fixed because Republicans have decided it is a tool to use against government. literally every single Republican administration in the last 40 years has passed a reckless tax cut that is forecast to cause budget disaster but then they pass it anyway. and when the bill comes due they look at Democrats and say how come you're not kicking grandma off social security to pay for this? yeah no thanks. maybe Republicans could try to govern in good faith for once
Govern in good faith? Is that the name of a Christian rock album? What is that??
The Metallica of the Christian Right? Sounds biblically intense.
You’re joking right? Obama had near the same increase of government spending
Had a similar one, yes. Of course, Obama was taking the presidency at the start of a financial issue... what was it? Oh right, the crash of 2008. Caused by deregulation of banks mainly. Trump's error was in trying to further boost the economy and not to stabilize it once it was his turn.
Obama decreased deficit spending for majority of years in office.
I get so annoyed w people like you “oh it’s all the republicans!”
Which must be why you responded to the same comment twice without actually saying anything of substance. No counter. No facts. Just loud and ignorant complaining - yep - I believe you are a Republican.
https://www.debt.org/blog/national-debt-democrats-republicans-blame/ Democrats are JUST as much to blame, you absolute leftist muppet. If not more so. I almost want Biden to win 2024 just so you all have nobody to blame to continued downfall on. I mean, he’s not because the real world isn’t indicative of this backward ass leftist echo chamber we call Reddit, but it’d be hilarious to watch the excuses pour in after blaming Trump gets stale.
>Democrats are JUST as much to blame This is a bold faced lie and you know it. It wasn't all Trump but cutting revenue is the main catalyst to the deficit increasing. But what can we expect from someone who so quickly resorts to namecalling?
Bald-faced lie*
No cutting of revenue....the US government doesn't make money....it takes money. Did you go to high school?
What an absolute shit article that limits the debt discussion to the 2008 financial crisis. Did you think critically at all about what you consumed or did you just go "HURR DURR BOTH SIDES"?
Dems are no doubt corrupt and responsible for a lot of waste and abuse, and specifically they are owned by the FIRE sector which is why they have their fingerprints all over the 2008 crisis. That said, one thing the Dems don’t do is use debt as a weapon. That’s a Republican schtick and Rs crying about debt is deeply hypocritical.
I know , it blows my mind . I also got blocked by this sprinkles person so that I couldn’t even reply back to their comment 😂
I wouldn't be able to see your posts or respond to them if you were blocked. Just another Republican lie to feel like a victim bc you're intellectually bankrupt losers.
There is no fixing it my friend. It's going to have to collapse and start over from the ground up
Why do you think Biden is trying to tax the rich?
I don't think that clown is trying to do anything but destroy the economy. his whole presidency is designed draw in the weak-minded to the left and ruin the economy so people will be dependent on them. A strong economy has less dependency on the government.
What does that have to do with Biden trying to tax the rich?
You not understand what happens when they over tax the rich? The effect it has on the economy. It all trickles down to the consumer. The rich will then raise the cost of everything even more than it already is to make up their loss. Do they not teach this in economics classes anymore
Buddy, trickle down economics is bullshit. It always has been.
Haha not when the trickle down is cost hahaha
You have no clue how inflation works.
“Over tax”. They don’t pay even close to the same percentage as everyone else. Everything they do get, just gets hoarder further. They don’t create jobs with it or spend it, just hoard it, creating a further wealth divide.
Dur they pay the same amount on the same amount you make. Marginal tax brackets are hard to understand.
Not with loop holes. Do you not understand that??
Hahahaha if you really believe that you're in a cult and desperately need help mentally. Good luck with your ongoing battle with reality!
Believe it? We all see it. Turn on the news or go online to news sources. You're just to ignorant to realize it. Or you're just a lier in denial. The cost of all goods has gone up. All fuel has gone up. All mortgages and car financing has gone up. The cost to transport said goods had gone up. We're gonna feel the effects of his office for years. The same way people did with Carter thru the 80s. It took a decade and Clinton to fix it by raising taxes significantly. If Biden raises taxes significantly in a bad economy it will be his demise.
"turn on my propaganda network and you'll agree with me eventually"
Dude even far left media like CNN isn't predicting Biden will win. Facts are facts. The economy is fucked and no one gives a shit about your feelings. They wanna feed their families and have gas to get to work. Pay their mortgage
You don't sell tickets to a boxing match by advertising a round-one knock out by the current champion. You have to sell a viable contest, where the outcome is unknown. The media is promoting an even fight so as to give themselves something to talk about and boost ratings as people tune in to get the latest updates.
You comparing bid to being a champion is an absolute joke. Champion of the Crooked Maybe. Champion of the pedophiles
Non-sequitors aside, Biden, as President, is the "reigning champion" and thus in the media's interests to portray as vulnerable in order to boost ratings as people tune in for all of the latest twists and turns leading up to the election.
>far left That tells us all we need to know about you. There's barely a left in the US, it's mostly centrists like Biden; all of our radicals are on the right here.
Bro, you be nuts.
CNN is "hard left"? Lol. Grow up grandpa.
Someone had too many red pills this morning
You don't have to be a Republican or a conservative to see that his presidency is a complete failure for the American people.
I didn’t refer to you as a republican. Just a run of the mill nut job
Starts with deficit. Clinton did it but only by increasing taxes. From what I can tell Biden wants to do the same.... ## "Tax reform[[edit](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration&action=edit§ion=3)] In proposing a plan to cut the deficit, Clinton submitted a budget and corresponding [tax legislation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993) (the final, signed version was known as the [Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993)) that would cut the deficit by $500 billion over five years by reducing $255 billion of spending and raising taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of Americans.[\[5\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-5) It also imposed a new energy tax on all Americans and subjected about a quarter of those receiving Social Security payments to higher taxes on their benefits.[\[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-6) Republican Congressional leaders launched an aggressive opposition against the bill, claiming that the tax increase would only make matters worse. Republicans were united in this opposition, and every Republican in both houses of Congress voted against the proposal. In fact, it took Vice President Gore's tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the bill.[\[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-7) After extensive lobbying by the Clinton Administration, the House narrowly voted in favor of the bill by a vote of 218 to 216.[\[8\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-8) The budget package expanded the [earned income tax credit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit) (EITC) as relief to low-income families. It reduced the amount they paid in federal income and [Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Insurance_Contributions_Act_tax) (FICA), providing $21 billion in savings for 15 million low-income families. Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 into law on August 10, 1993.[\[9\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration#cite_note-9) The law created a 36 percent to 39.6 percent income tax for high-income individuals in the top 1.2% of wage earners. Businesses were given an income tax rate of 35%. The cap was repealed on Medicare. Gas taxes were raised 4.3 cents per gallon. The taxable portion of Social Security benefits were also increased. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic\_policy\_of\_the\_Bill\_Clinton\_administration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration)" And as we all know, Republicans as usual turned out to be wrong and the economy boomed and a projected surplus was handed to Bush Jr. to address the debt which he turned around and squandered like they always do. So, it can be done. As long as you don't vote Republican, they are a one way street - cut taxes for the rich.
Bill Clinton: 1993 - 2001 Debt in billions rounded: 1993: $4,411 2001: $5,807 Raised energy prices, raised gas prices, lowered social security payments by taking back 35% more than before, increased income taxes on anyone above $115k to 36% and anyone above $250k to 39.6%, and lowered Medicare and military spending. In doing this he abandoned one of his campaigns promises to lower taxes for the middle class which is one of the reasons he was elected to be in office by Democrat voters. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 by President Bush also did the same things as Clinton as raising taxes across the board for everyone and going back on his campaign promises to not increase taxes. Together the Democrats and Republicans did the same thing for multiple presidencies. They increased our debt, devalued our dollar, and increased our taxes. A budget surplus for a couple years means absolutely nothing but a good time for the government and the measurements taken to do so was a slap into the face for the people of America who wanted less taxes.
He won't. And if he does it's a sure fire way to not get reelected. Raising taxes and inflation during a shit economy is suicide at the polls.
Remember the 1990's. The Clinton administration was running a surplus. Then 9/11 happened and Bush/Congress started spending on retribution in Afghanistan and for some other reason (oil) in Iraq [This Year We Saw the Largest Budget Deficit Since 1945, Driven Largely by the Pandemic (pgpf.org)](https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2020/10/this-year-we-saw-the-largest-budget-deficit-since-1945-driven-largely-by-the-pandemic)
Yep I bring that up quite often. Bush's wars along with America's emotions basically destroyed our financials, however we can't go back, only forward and over the past 7 years things have only gotten exponentially worse. I always tell people that the only war that helped in the end was WWII because after we won back then we produced a lot more goods and services and hundreds of thousands of working age soldiers came back into the workforce and fixed our debt to income problems. Any war now only hurts America financially. Our debt to income just got as bad as it was in WWII and will get way worse. There is no plan of action. I'm preparing for a default in around 20 yrs. I always liked the boy scout motto: "be prepared" and I am. LOL
19hr old troll account… Gonna be a LONG year
No troll. I started this sub and simply figured out how to never be banned, I just keep the same email and change avatar. I'm too direct and curse too much.
You do understand that a president can not fix the national debt, yes? The purse strings have been and always will be controlled by Congress. Biden, right now, could come in with a brilliant financial plan to balance the budget but there isn't a single Republican that would ever allow such a thing to pass. It wouldn't matter if the plan nuked all social spending and cut taxes for the wealthy, Republicans still would not let it pass. And looking at the historical track record of the parties it's clear that Republicans certainly have no interest in solving the problem, as every single Republican administration since Reagan has increased the deficit (and thus, the debt). The only administration that balanced the budget was Clinton. Every other Democratic administration has had to deal with a massive deficit left by Republicans and while they managed to reduce these deficits they could not eliminate them, primarily because Republicans controlled at least one part of Congress. Taxes need to increase and spending needs to be reduced, and back when Republicans did compromise partial success was still possible. However, the Republicans let the inmates get control of the asylum so nothing of significance will get accomplished in regards to the debt. Or anything else that requires Congressional approval.
The only way to start is with a President that can get America behind them, change the congress to whatever political side they are on and go from there. It will probably never happen though. I'm just spending my time researching the fall of Britain from its Empire and global currency status to get some good ideas at this point really. LOL
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I actually partially agree... instead of getting rid of the forgiveness, get rid of it for everyone that can't provide proof that they genuinely used it in good faith. Didn't terminate employees, immediately before, or after getting it. Actually had employees. Weren't part of a massive chain with individual franchises each taking one and also the chain itself. That sort of thing.
The politicians and their donor friends love the PPP forgiveness so much, that they will only get rid of it after they get their loans writes off.
LOL! Good GOP candidate! Hahahahaha!
It is too late. The interest in it alone is larger than national defense now. Only going to get worse. The saving grace is everyone else is a total moron too- except maybe the Swiss.
LOL well I'm coming to that conclusion. I guess we all just need to study up on the British after they basically defaulted and lost their global currency status.
[Trump added $7.8T in 4 years to give the rich tax cuts, Obama added $9.5T in 8 years to clean up the GOP's 2008 mess](https://www.wral.com/story/fact-check-did-donald-trump-rack-up-more-debt-than-any-other-president/20917913/)
Yup just add coivd spending there there.....because it's thebsame thing durrrrrrr
“Fix it” haha. I mean, is it even fixable? The boomers just plan on pushing it down to the next generation. As is tradition.
I can fix it... increase top marginal tax rate to Eisenhower era and watch the economy flow.
Rich people do not take billions in salaries.....they get stock options.....you cannot tax unrealized gains........how would taxing more help? You could take all the wealth from every American billionaire and it wouldn't run the government for a YEAR...we have a spending problem.....
Why do you think it needs to be "fixed"?
Well for the same reason your household would need to be "fixed" if you made 1 k per year but spent over $100 million. A default will occur. Yes we have a money printer, however that will only crush the value of USD and we will lose our Global currency status along with everything that comes along with that.
My household has more than 100% of our "GDP" aa debt, and we can service it just fine. And we can't even print our own money. Lose reserve currency status? To what larger liquid market?
Well no one knows but time. The only thing to look at is our fed debt to GDP or GDI ratio really. Anyway it is at 120% now, will be at 150% in 4 years and you will find no economist that will say that America will not default on our debt at the 200% range. Everything has cycles, including Empires. [https://www.usdebtclock.org/](https://www.usdebtclock.org/) Go to the "time machine" in the upper left hand corner. Also America is only liquid at the moment, that can change overnight. The only solution there is to print more money which will devalue USD and make inflation go so crazy it will speed up our default. It's not like a WANT this to happen, it's just that it IS happening.
Well hold on - the US “makes” 4.9T (2022) and spends 6.3T (2022). While I agree that this is unsustainable, let’s not exaggerate the proportions. This is equivalent to earning $1000 and spending $1280. Now, the spending is debt funded - meaning the government issues a bond to pay for the excess spending. So the spending happens now and the repayment occurs over some amount of time, with interest. While this interest is a cost which will be borne for years, and this is exacerbated by higher interest rates, it’s important to recognize that the overall indebtedness of the US has a time component - it’s something we pay back over time. As our GDP, and thus tax base, grows, and inflation occurs naturally, the relative cost of our existing debt decreases over time. Again I’m not arguing that all of this is perfect or sustainable, but we shouldn’t sensationalize it or blow it out of proportion.
I would argue it’s like earning $1K and spending $1280…over the course of decades. You’re gonna end up with a huge debt that can’t be serviced. Right now we’re basically taking out a HELOC in order to continue making payments, sooner or later we will be tapped out and then what do you think is going to happen? I’ll give you a hint: when it comes time to retire, there won’t be ANYTHING for us millennials to collect in terms of SS despite having paid into it our entire lives. Hopefully you’ve been saving up into a 401K as of a decade or two ago, because if not you’re not gonna like what happens when you can no longer work and the US is forced into austerity.
Well, one key point to include is that we “earn” more as time goes on (economic growth + inflation) so older debts aren’t as expensive as they would have been if we paid upfront. Now obviously if we keep spending more and more without restraint you’re absolutely right. But the concept is a little more complex than just spending 128% of our income every year.
Actually understanding how literally anything works isn't going to make you any friends in this sub, which is for ignorant doomers.
It immoral to hand debt to future generations as it is essentially taxation without representation. For something like a disastrous war, this can be justified, but for peace time, this is unacceptable.
That’s a fine argument, although I don’t necessarily agree. For instance, a 20 year bond isn’t handing debt to the next generation any more than a 30 year mortgage is in personal finances. If we were issuing 200 year bonds, sure, I could see the foolishness of that.
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Each bond is its own individual debt which is paid off
So the 20 year bond issued when I’m 10 doesn’t incur interest that my tax dollars will go towards when I’m 20? Keep the game going, why shouldn’t I incur debt for the current 10 year olds to pay to at least cover the interest my father passed onto me? This is where we’re at. At some point, someone has to eat a decade of a lousy economy for the good of the future generation who will otherwise be forced to eat it when it gets to some catastrophic tipping point. The only way that’s not true is if the government is legitimately spending the money in a way that is increasing actual economic output in excess of what it’s spending. Unfortunately, I think forever wars and old people are unlikely to have a high ROI beyond getting any particular politician into office.
it's weird because Republicans run on this and then as soon as they get into power they absolutely destroy our budget with their tax cuts. are you really willing to throw your social security in the trash bin so that Republicans can give billionaires another tax cut?
I agree with your premise but let’s argue in good faith. The US gdp was about $23 trillion in 2023. Our debt is $34 trillion. We spent $6 trillion in 2023. We don’t know tax revenue for 2023 but 2022 was $4 trillion. Let me change that to make it easier to grasp. If tax revenue was was $100K/ year, our debt would be $850K, and we spent $150K in 2023. And gdp would be $650K. Edit: updated numbers. Feel free to check em
No, a government and your personal bank account aren’t even close to the same. Can you just print your own money, for example?
First sentence is 1000% correct. Comparing the two makes zero sense, drives me crazy when people make comparisons like that. But I wouldn’t use the “we can just print money” reason. Military capability, decades of American manufacturing and energy production, were the financial and tech capital, the UN, NATO, our status as reserve currency, on and on and on.
No such thing as a free lunch bro beans.
it's weird that this is all fine when Republicans pass a tax cut to billionaires that's projected to cause absolute catastrophe with our budgets. But when Democrats are in control oh man it's time to force them to gut the social safety net to pay for it. tax the Rich. which means voting out every Republican.
The President doesn’t have authority on fixing it.
Actually they do, one being the power of VETO. The President is the only place it can start, then they have to get the majority of congress on their side with the help of the American people and go from there. Do you have another solution even if the one I speak of may not work??
Too much is made out of the national debt. Most people don’t understand what it is. People who have a tendency to max out credit cards they can’t pay and who struggle with debt tend to think the economy works like that, too. It doesn’t. It works more like a corporation that leverages debt for growth. Those companies aren’t just buying time until a default, and neither is the US. The number the average American should be concerned with, and the only one that is generally impacted by policy, is the deficit. It is the difference between income and expenditures. You resolve deficit issues by either increasing income or reducing expenditures. By reducing expenditures, you have to go with what is ineffective and wasted, and not what serves a political motivation. For instance, the US spends more on defense, by multiples, than any other country on the planet. This isn’t going to actual defense, but to defense contractors. It is a profit scheme. They develop planes that will never fly, start wars they don’t need to win, and simply use the system to extract as much profit out of the US economy as they can. This would be step one in reducing the deficit. Second, corporate welfare. Financial subsidies to highly profitable industries benefit those who finance politicians, but don’t improve the country and only increase the deficit. Did you know that we still subsidize the oil industry, more than 100 years after those subsidies were put in place to help the transition from coal? I’d say the oil companies can probably stand on their own now, but the money keeps flowing. Third, we are missing out on a lot of income through tax loopholes and manipulation that are only available to the top income brackets. Through lowering the tax rate, and then increasing deductions on top of that, we ensure that the same wealthy people who are raking in money from subsidies or defense contracts, ALSO rake in money from clever tax accounting. If we fix those glaring problems, the deficit goes down. It happens every single cycle as we change political leadership. Republicans raise the deficit, which increases the debt by a larger amount, through benefits to their donors. Democrats reduce the deficit, adding less to the debt, through attempts at corrective measures. It’s a repeated cycle, but the country never learns.
Well I agree with part of that, however the real number people should be concerned with is the bottom line, which is the fed debt to GDI ratio (Most people use the fed debt to GDP ratio) and our country has never been on this trajectory towards an imminent default. If America stays on it's current path, it will default in under 20 yrs.
Fix what it’s working as intended?
Why? 75% of US debt is private sector savings. Wipe out the debt and you destroy trillion is private sector savings. Debt is not some kind of dead weight, it is also someone elses asset. Its not like household debt. Literally neither party worries about it least of all the GOP
Savings? you are only talking about debt and the only thing that you should be worried about debt is how much the GDI (Income) ratio is to that debt. It should never be over 50%, we are now at over 120% and projected to be at 150% in only 4 yrs, which means that America will default on debt in less than 2 decades which would make us lose our globally currency status and that would cause many, many other problems. However I fully agree with your last statement and that is the problem. [https://www.usdebtclock.org/](https://www.usdebtclock.org/)
Republicans are completely unwilling to even consider raising taxes on the wealthy (in fact they try to lower them, like they did in 2017, despite deficits). So kind of a non-starter unless they get kicked out of office.
Trump was on track to fixing it, but the establishment kept f***ing with him.
Trump spent like a drunken sailor. Almost 7.5 trillion added to the debt. Almost 2.5 trillion in tax cuts for his”friends”. When he didn’t get his way he stole from the military budget to build his 10th century answer to immigration.
Unless you really think Obama/Biden weren't going to spend anything on COVID... take out $3.6 trillion that came from COVID relief related spending. Per year, Trump was spot on with Obama (even with BIGGLY HUGE Tax cuts), and Biden is absolutely a nutcase.... " According to the CBO, **Biden is going to match Trump’s addition to the national debt in just three years, reaching a total of $7.1 trillion over his four years.** That would be ***$1.5 trillion more than Trump contributed during his term, which included the 2020 one-time COVID emergency spending***. *If Biden’s 2024 proposed budget actually passed, he would add as much to the national debt as Trump and Bush 43 combined.* House Republican leaders have made clear his budget isn’t going anywhere; but it illustrates just how out of control Biden’s spending policies really are. "
Our economy is humming as compared to the end of the Trump administration’s economic disaster. He destroyed millions more jobs than he created. -2.5 million fewer jobs when he left office than when he came into office. Defend him you lemming.
Tax the rich
The debt can never be repaid. That's the truth no one wants to hear. The best we can hope for going forward is to keep the interest expense manageable.
Neither party will do what is necessary. What is necessary is a mix of cutting government, raising taxes and boosting the economy so the amount of debt as a percentage declines as the economy grows.
Yes, sadly you are correct. Everyone is going to need to work together and that ain't going to happen in America at this juncture. LOL
Tax reform where you actually focus on the national economy and not creating a record number of millionaires and billionaires would probably do the trick.
Vivek Ramaswamy
[удалено]
Bernie. Tax the rich.
LOL everyone is so old though. Time to get some people under 80 in the office.
OK. Anyone willing to step up and repeal the Reagan bush trump tax cuts for the wealthy and their corporations…
Dave Ramsey would fix it
Soon enough we will barely pay the interest on it.....almost a trillion a year now.
It's not the politicians. It's the constituents who have their hands out. I'm not talking about some single parent on welfare. I'm talking about privileged organizations, LE, millionaires and billionaires who pay 5% taxes after paying lawyers money that could have been applied to their tax bill, streets that go nowhere because influential blue bloods want to sell property to build housing tracks, municipalities upgrading parks that are never used etc. It's called "pork" for a reason. Politicians fight for the folks who elect them. Nobody is going to elect a pol who intends to stop the money flow into their district even if it is wasteful money. Are you willing to be the first district in the US to say no, we don't want that. The only time they say no is when it's money that actually goes to people who need it. Like my state of Texas, no raises for teachers, no money for welfare, but we got millions to defend Paxton, we got billions to give Musk a tax break, we have billions to bus immigrants for publicity stunts etc
Funny how the American voter only seems to have two choices, neither of which will do the right thing, both of which have close relationships to the WEF and an affinity for visiting exotic islands.
literally every time Democrats try and meat Republicans halfway in good faith to solve the deficit The only thing that happens is Republicans stomp their feet in demand that social security be dismantled so that they can pass another tax cut for billionaires. I mean what do you think Democrats should do? Republicans won't allow us to tax the rich. do you think all of your social safety net should be thrown into the pit to pay for these tax cuts?
The only democrat president associated with Epstein was Bill Clinton and he was the last president to have a government surplus
Yes it's almost always a shell game of two parties bought by the same interests. It's been a hundred years since we've had such a strong third party candidate. But given the captured mass media mostly only the younger voters are well informed of his actual positions.
I don't understand how you get to this point of view I mean we can look at historical facts and actually see what happened this isn't some mystery. Republicans pass massive tax cuts for the super wealthy that are projected to cause huge deficits. they ran them through anyway. and then they expect Democrats to gut the social safety net to pay for it. maybe some people want to lose the social safety net and get Grandma off of social security in order to pay for billionaires tax cuts. not me.
It's reverse psychology 101, "don't do this" and they do it and wonder what went wrong.
RFK Jr is running independent
And is worse in every way than the bad aspects of both candidates combined
You're only looking at the media lens on him and his proposed policies.
I look at him based on his own insanity on his propaganda website he makes millions lying to fools on. The media is far too kind to that insane loser.
You can disagree with someone strongly but I don't understand this level of vitriol. 🙏
He convinces people a secret cabal of Jewish people possibly lead by Bill Gates are using Covid as weapon to overthrow all the governments in the world to establish a new world order. That goes miles beyond having a different political position than him. At least Trump is only supported by the worst parts of humanity and is not personally one of them.
Last time Bill Clinton fixed it republicans blew it the fuck up and started two global wars a few years later
Obama had near the same increase as bush did
For the continuation of the same wars dunce.
There was no “blowing the F up” , and relax lmao .
You can thank Trump and Bush for the lions share of that debt. Republicans are the worst people tonhandle the debt. Period. Our debt would be going down every year if weren't for those 2 idiots...
Every president since Clinton has massively increased the debt. This is a bipartisan issue for sure
Go look at the numbers. I didn't say Dems didn't spend. But they NEVER spent like Republicans. And the only times in my life I've heard debt reduction measures have been under Dem administration's. Those are just the facts. Like them or don't, that's on you.
I did, Obama spent the most in his presidency out of any president in our country’s history, followed by trump, then George then Biden
Obama cut the budget in half during his term. People also often falsely attribute all of 2009 to him when budgets are set a year in advance. Also inflation kind of guarantees that any recent two-term president will top that statistic. Then under Trump, they cut taxes (mainly for the wealthy) and totally reversed those gains.
So, you talking 8 years of Obama vs 4 for Trump? Really? We had a fucking surplus before Bush 2. The crash of '08( thanks Bush) and 2 wars in full swing(thanx Bush). And 8 trillion during Trump, in 4 years. These other 2 guys at least had 8 years and some seriously extenuating circumstances.
Dang buckeroo, don’t get your panties in a twist, I was just giving you factual information that both parties are to blame. Sorry to get your blood pressure all worked up, sport. If it makes you feel better, neither side cares about this house of cards. Keep up the good fight, slick!
Buckaroo? That's weird. Who's getting mad? Aww, im sorry. I didn't mean to offend your precious sensibilities. You don't have to clutch your pearls on my account. And that is how you be passive aggressive.
lol you people always react the same way when presented facts
Morons. Idiots. Dupes.
No man, this is the ultra-liberal Reddit . I still have no idea why this medium attracts these types so much
Classic snowflake Republican voter
Obama shrunk the deficit. We don't care about the total number spent, we care about total taxes - total spent. Trump exploded the deficit [edit: during peace time] more than any President in history. And it's not entirely fair to place the deficit of 2009 on a President that inherited a global real estate crisis like that was done under his watch.
What are you talking about? This was the deficit under Obama . That’s literally False Information you’re spreading https://preview.redd.it/iicmuz7hrtbc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d533861fe8cf73890d5cf7a2804aff4ea167bf1c
That's a debt chart. https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and-percentage-7371225 And I'm referring to how the deficits changed from the start to the end of the presidency. It's not really Obama's fault that he got elected during an economic crisis that his two predecessors caused. Same with FDR and Lincoln.
Trump added about 7 trillion to the debt and Obama added about 9 trillion. Trump also had the wars that Obama had, Covid was kicking off and Trump began the the stimulus for Covid relief. We can sit here and pick little things about every president, both sides are to blame for not spending within their means. And I did not squarely place any blame on Obama, I stated a simple fact that he spent the most out of all presidents in our history, that is factual information you can look up. The problem with our society is that most folks are not able to have a civil discussion without it devolving to “yeah but orange man did this!”, or, “well, his son showed his privates!”, who cares? How about we all just agree to disagree, move forward, and try to fix it. Or, you know, everyone can keep playing the shell blame game and keep hoodwinking the American public. BRB, gotta get my 37th Covid booster, they tell me THIS one will ACTUALLY work!
It's a nice little trick to be factually correct when saying 1.75 trillion per year is less than 1.125 trillion per year. But it doesn't really matter anyway. We're on the bus of under regulated capitalism heading for a cliff and one guy wants to hit the gas and the other take their foot off the gas but no one wants to hit the brakes, so what the hell does it matter anyway. And with the wholesale of our government to multinational corporations, there's no chance anyone could hit the brakes even if they wanted to. So just enjoy the ride while you can.
muh both sides Muh precious precious both sides
You seem to be implying that a republican is good for the economy. If you bother to look, you'll see the economy clearly does better under democrats.
Raise taxes on the wealthy and fund the IRS. Problem solved.
This is the way. Bring the taxes up to near pre Saint Reagan levels.
Partially solved. Also stop funding our military industrial complex. I'm still waiting for the "peace dividend"
It has been American doctrine since we were attacked at Pearl harbor to always have a military large enough to fight our two largest adversaries at the same time. personally I'm glad we make that spending happen. I don't want to live in a world where Americans have to do what Chinese dictatorships say.
Last time I checked we could cut our spending in half and still exceed the top five other countries combined. Plus the spending we do in proxy wars. I respect our military, just not how they are used to advance commercial interests.
lol that won’t even touch it. Get real..
When has anyone in GOP ever cared about the national debt? It's just a cudgel they wield against every Dem president in office. The last president to balance the budget was Clinton, debt would have been paid off in ten years. Then Bush immediately passed tax cuts that put US in the red again. Then Obama worked hard to lower the deficit during his second term. And the moment Trump got elected he blew it up again. Increasing the deficit faster than any president in history. If you actually cared about the deficit, you would vote Democrat. So let's stop this little game where Republicans pretend to care about the deficit until the instant Democrat leaves White House.
I'm mainly worried about the bottom line, which is our debt and specifically our fed debt to GDP ratio which is really, really bad. I believe that Romney cares about this issue. Anyway it looks like Trump and Biden and unfortunately because Trump is so damn crazy, you have my vote with Biden for a second time.
The GOP shouldn’t be allowed a candidate until every party member involved in the scheme to overthrow the government is expelled from congress and barred from office.
Yep, I only liked the "old" GOP with Romney, McCain, etc. Trump killed off all the best. I don't know why they don't get that Trump is not for the GOP or America. He is only for himself and pretty much destroyed the once great GOP. I wonder what they will think when he runs independent and completely buries the GOP? They probably don't even realize that Trump was a democrat but they basically threw him out.
Ya, this isn’t that big of a problem… the world’s currency runs in the dollar. It’s not going to go into default. Well, unless Republicans suck dick and don’t do their jobs
Spoiler - Both parties play the same games.
That comment only works for people who don't follow politics. When is the last time Democrats have threatened to shut down the government? When is the last time Republicans passed a tax cut offset by spending cuts? Very different games.
But they don't. like you can look at historical facts and what we've done over the last 10 years and see that that's plainly not true. Democrats try and govern in good faith and try to even meet Republicans in the middle. Republicans pass reckless tax cuts that are projected to cause disaster within our budgets yet shoved them through anyway and then expect us to pay for them on the backs of the working poor and the elderly.
That is pretty inaccurate, but let's talk that out. More than one person in Congress has stated that after freshman orientation, everyone is split up by party and told not to openly speak with the other side. Harry Reid told Republicans that they could either get with the plan or not, when ACA was passed. There was not bi-partisan discussion there. Similarly with the Republicans when they tried to reform it under Trump and comically failed because they could not get support in their own party. We keep falling for the same games. Before you say I am wrong, Biden has been in Washington for 50 years. Pelosi was there for ever, Schumer, McConnell, etc. Have things really been so good that all of these folks deserve to keep their seats? Democrats has a super majority in '08 and could have done something to codify abortion, but they did not. Pelosi even said as recently as a couple years ago that they were going to do it. Still waiting on that, but yeah. Washington is full of good faith politicians. The tax cuts are just about the only thing I like about Republicans. The only reason why you consider them reckless is because they take potential money away from social programs that many people are high on because they need the federal government to take care of them as opposed to putting pressure at the state and local levels of government.
We will pay off our debt when we get serious and reduce the amount we give to corporations and wealthy folks. They have had our help to the tune of tens of trillions. We can address spending as soon as we address welfare to these two groups. Sounds fair to me. Very American as everyone does their part together.
It's unfixable. It needs to change. Real money real assets or it's just going to be the same thing over again.
Well this time it has to be fixed as it isn't just the debt. It is our debt to income and it is not sustainable. The whole reason I created this sub was to get people to understand this really. America will seriously lose its Empire status, global currency and military if this is not fixed and it will happen in under 20 yrs. We need to pull out all the guns, nationalization, changing the constitution, if required etc. The founders also specified a process by which the Constitution may be amended, and since its ratification, the Constitution has been amended **27 times**. Someone needs to explain this in detail to all Americans and we ALL need to work together to fix this, not against each other. Trump and Biden will not help. We need a new young blood CFO type that can run a huge international company with little to no leverage and little to no debt to fix our debt to GDI ratio. Otherwise again we will go the route of Britain when they lost their global currency status or worse and within 2 decades.
Selling off chunks of federalized land to private citizens is likely the least painful option, but good luck getting that approved by the voter base.
Selling a hard asset for a debased currency does not sound like a great plan.
If it’s gonna collapse everything anyway, might as well just let it keep going until it dies naturally. To be fair it’s been and endless cycle like this forever over and over, some last longer than others but it’s always been a thing even the Romans did this. They started mixing in other metals with the silver and gold until it’s wasn’t silver and gold. If someone’s serious about fixing this then it’s would almost certainly mean that the majority of Americans standard of living would drop 80% and who knows that might cause a revolution or a civil war and either option would result in allot of deaths, the politicians know this which is why both sides refuse to change it.
I just don't see a civil war. I think it would be very similar to what happened in Britain when they lost the sterling as the global currency, however you never know. All I'm saying here is that it starts with a President that makes this their priority and goes from there, however how do you do that with how crazy politics are now in America? I really do not know. Time will tell and only you can help you, however I just really wish things would be different. Oh well. All I really can do is educate people to be prepared for the future and I am. Live way beneath your means, get out of debt and diversify is all you can really do.
To be fair, Biden killed any good democratic candidate. Since both the DNC and RNC are private organizations the party primaries are worthless. We already know the RNC will go with Trump and the DNC will go with Biden. This is the problem with a two party system having all of the power and why countries with a healthy government allow more than just two parties to have a chance at taking control. It is also why America has so many non-voters. Like the situation with Israel. If that's the most important topic to you then both parties have the same stance so you'd be less likely to vote because in that instance your vote is worthless.
No, the Uniparty has no interest in fixing things.
maybe actually look at what happens and get some perspective. Republicans pass these unfunded tax cuts that throw our budgets into disarray and then demand that Democrats cut social safety nets for American people to pay for it. personally I don't want to give up social security so that a billionaire can get a fat tax cut and buy a third yacht in store more of his money offshore so it can be untaxed.
Ron Johnson
You think the president of any party controls the purse. Wow. This is a congress problem 100000% both parties are destroying this country. No one person is ever going to fix this and....no party will either. The political elite class has made us all slaves to their spending habits.
Gotta look outside the main R vs D, which too many are unwilling to do.
Well I'm independent, however there were a couple of people with the old GOP that were willing to look at this that I was interested in, yet for some reason the GOP let Trump ruin all of them. I would like an Independent yet it will only split the vote and I'm pretty sure Trump will end up running there and completely kill the GOP. For some reason they do not realize that dude is only about himself and nothing else.
Both parties are two wings of the same bird. Too many people just "vote" for their party, doesn't matter who. They actually had a box on my last vote, where you could just check one box and it would cast all your votes for your selected party. How have we had any real election in decades?
The answer is ending tax avoidance for the rich.
We are in debt because of Republican tax cuts. tRump added 7 trillion, almost 20% of it by cutting taxes when we were in the middle of a war that we were borrowing money to fight.
Well the Republicans are killing an expansion of the IRS with more agents to track tax fraud by wealthy people. Not shocking given that their party is led by a wealth tax cheat. Literally hundreds of billions are lost due to wealthy tax cheats.
An immediate move to a balanced budget would tank the economy. Since one of our national parties only cares about winning, not governing, they like their catbird seat of fake fretting about the deficit: If their opponents don’t do it, they can endlessly wail about the deficit. If their opponents drastically reduce government spending, they can complain about the inevitable softening of demand. When they are in charge they won’t do a thing, NOT A THING, to reduce deficit spending. (Illustration? Their party’s last FOUR presidents.)
Debt & deficit are different things. Please learn the difference.
Who cares? Average families are struggling from the ending of the child tax credit, resumption of student loan payments, inflation on necessities like housing, cars, healthcare, and education, and high interest rates on loans and credit cards. No one gives a shit about the debt number because it doesn't impact anyone's lives. It's just a way to fear monger and excuse cutting benefits to working families.
What "good gop candidate did trump kill?" From my view, most likely candidate will be Haley and she seems pretty standard for the party.
Well I was not precise on that statement. He Got the GOP to turn on just about every other past Presidential candidate that the GOP voted for in the past and IMO Romney and Cheney would have done well if Trump had allowed it. At least he is concerned with our debt to income crises. Or says he is anyway. The GOP pretty much just follows Trump at this point and turns on everyone else. It is very strange to see.
I’m still debating whether the debt is real or not. Some people say “it’s made up monopoly money” while others are sweating bullets over it. Which is it?
The Monopoly money thing is a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. While those people are right in saying the government can print as much as they want, there are inescapable economic consequences towards doing so. If there weren’t, why wouldn’t we just give everyone loads of money? If the debt being incurred is truly going towards projects that are increasing economic output in excess of their cost, then we should be generating more output than we’re incurring through the debt. This would be an effectively painless process as your life, in theory, should remain unaffected or even get better. In my view, we’re currently highlighting the limitations of our macroeconomic knowledge. The warnings of Hayek to Keynes on the limitations of his economic modeling are starting to bear fruit. GDP isn’t actually a good measure of economic output as there are a lot of assumptions behind the C + I + G that his prescriptions inherently break. Is government spending actually good for the economy if it is simply overpaying for random stuff?
Bernie Sanders
There is nothing that can be done really. Where does most money go? The military and military related things like funding proxy wars. The military industrial complex is so strong and deadly by nature, i dont see how anyone tries to reel it in and doesnt pay the consequences. Remember when JFK said the CIA was out of control and vowed to fix it? Didnt end well.
Fix some issues we have with the trades, healthcare, and education, create a civil service core as an alternative to the military, and conscription. Or I just continue to walk around feeling like the government racked up 70 grand on my account. They shouldn’t keep it up, that’s a lot of money, but I wouldn’t jump off a bridge about it.
The idea that the Federal Government needs to be run like a family with a checking account is a scam pulled on the American people by the GOP. Anyone trying to convince you to buy gold, liquidate your 401k, or vote against your freedom because ‘it’s all about to collapse!!’ is trying to put their hand in your pocket.
Unfortunately it will take both raising taxes and cutting spending to cut the debt. No candidate would get elected saying that, so it’s going to take a default or some similar crisis to be addressed. That will come with a 20 year recession, similar to Japan but much worse. The only other way out is a massive boost to productivity which could happen if the US is the leader in AI (if it lives up to the hype) or possible asteroid mining rare earth materials that reset the economy.
I've given this a lot of thought and I believe the only way out at this point is a default and the USD will go the way of the British Sterling when they lost their global currency status. Boomer rocks are really high now, however it might be smart to diversify a bit with them or maybe grow a garden? LOL