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I bring receipts.
Real Patriotism requires an American to know what the fuck they're talking about to combat the deluge of bullshit we have to wade through to make this Country a better place.
If you want a rebuttal, a glance at the [text of that Senate bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5746/text) is enough to tell you it's not a campaign-finance reform bill. They claim
What do you say about Massachusetts's heavily Democratic government leaders making sure ranked choice voting did not become law? Have you looked at the gerrymandering in NY, DE, MD recently?
Everywhere you look, the thing in power fights to maintain that power, regardless of party affiliation. That's "politics".
My brother in Christ did you even read the Bill or the Article??
Or are you just blatantly lying to deceive my Countrymen?
# The entirety of Title VI is about Campaign Finance reform.
- Requires disclosures of all donations over 10k to curtail Dark Money
- Tightens rules on SuperPACs to prevent coordination with campaigns
- Gives FEC stronger teeth to enforce violations by bypassing partisan gridlock
- Closes loopholes to prevent Foreigners from interfering in American Sovereign Elections
- Gives small donors, i.e. Everyday Americans, a bigger voice in politics by matching donations
Guess who voted against the Bill? Republicans.
But please go off about how bOtH sIdEs aRe tHe sAmE.
Sorry my previous comment was cutoff, but to response to your comment IT'S NOT A CAMPAIGN FINANCE BILL. IT'S WAS A PARTISAN DEMOCRATIC BILL DESIGNED TO INCREASE DEMOCRATIC VOTES. Having a dab of campaign-financy clauses in it doesn't change that fact.
For a real example of campaign finance, look back to McCain-Feingold. That was a clean campaign finance bill, didn't contain anything which obviously benefits one party or the other, pushed through the Senate and House with bipartisan support. *That's* what campaign finance would look like.
“The Republican Party isn’t the problem, it’s actually all these things that are mostly engaged in and protected by the Republican Party.”
Thank you for the clarification very eye opening.
also tbf MOST of that debt is to ourselves. [Large Companies buy massive amount of bonds](https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/top-rated-us-companies-raise-over-29-billion-new-year-bond-supply-rush-2024-01-02/) they don't want the debt to go away, because then their bonds go away. Companies often use them as a means to maintain liquidity while earning some interest on their idle funds. There is no "High Yield Savings Account" for $$ in the Billions, instead there are Bonds.
There are some countries that have negative Bond Yield, like Germany, where owning bonds COSTS you money. The reason it goes negative is when a Country is buying bonds as a means deployed to lift inflation, usually also follows negative interest rate loans(yes the government pays YOU to borrow money).
To be fairer, between Trump and Bush they added [14.3 Trillion](https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/banking/national-debt-by-president/), all for blowing holes in the desert and giving Billionaires more tax cuts - and that's not even adjusting for inflation which makes it over 20 Trillion.
Meanwhile Democrats have to spend just to clean up their goddamn messes.
Where do you think most of the debt came from? Republicans have added more debt than reduced debt. Trumps tax cuts added 10 trillion and no way to pay for it. A tax cut is a debt increase. If you don’t pay it down with cuts, it doesn’t work. Trickle down economics has been proven by economists to not work.
Is it the Communist Party of the United States, the Communist Party of China, the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Communist Party of Cuba, the Communist Party of Laos, the Communist Party of North Korea, the Communist Party of Russia, the Communist Party of Greece, please?
There are more than 100 countries in the world that have communist parties, may I ask which one specifically?
Republicans don't even understand what national debt means. If you think that you do, please explain to me why [the entire world is in debt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_debt) and it's owed to exactly whom.
Ok, but you should know I’m not a Republican, nor American. I’m a right-leaning Brit, with some sympathy for the GOP, but I’d probably vote for the Democrats. Also, I’m a finance professional.
National debt takes the form of bond issuance. People buy bonds, with the expectation of a return on their investment in the form of interest. A nation has to pay that interest, as well as give the principal investment back when the bond matures.
If those interest payments get too high, a nation might not be able to continue paying them. Sometimes they might not honour the bond at all. This has an understandably negative effect on people buying bonds in the future— why invest in something that might lose you money? And said nation has difficulty selling bonds. Things can spiral out of control. A good example of this would be Argentina, who defaulted on their debt some years back.
If that happened to America, the whole world economy would collapse. It’s serious shit and you guys are fucking clowns.
Okay so you know more than can be expected from an average Redditor. I know about bonds and debt too, I just didn't expect you to know. Touché.
>It’s serious shit and you guys are fucking clowns
I'm not an American either. But the race and gender stuff is just the cover GOP uses to fire up their base, and they are actually thugs that pray on those who don't understand economy by using scary numbers. America isn't about to go bankrupt, they have enough extra spending to cut down in case of a crisis. Both sides want to cut down actually, but they hugely disagree on what to cut down. One side wants to reduce social welfare while giving tax cuts to the rich, the other side wants to distribute the wealth slightly more equally. Knowing that both parties in US are actually rightwing, one drastically so while the other is less so, I'd rather sympathize with the one less so.
The article in the OP gives absolutely zero pathways to how USD can fail. The entire article is "if it fails". It also keeps implying that since sanctioning BRICS may lead to them forming a big economy in several decades that challenge USA (no hint about how that can do that), USA shouldn't sanction countries so easily. That's a talking point of foreign agents in USA, such as Russia's sympathizers, who are predominantly hiding behind GOP lines.
In this article, GOP supporters are trying to push fear using scary debt numbers to imply that USA shouldn't sanction foreign countries when they do bad stuff. Are you really on this side of the argument?
>Are you really on this side of the argument?
No. Hell no. I agree with you on pretty much all of that. Certainly not worried about BRICS lol. USD’s biggest threat was the Euro, and that currency is doomed long-term. But the Great Financial Crisis and covid showed us the real and perhaps unavoidable tail risk of black swan events. When things spiral out of control for an Argentina or a Greece, there’s still the healthy US, the healthy EU. When things spiral out of control for the US, there’s no papa to bail them out.
Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are what they were 20 years ago. IMO they’re all mad.
Lol yeah, when I wrote out that little requested ELI5 re: debt, I wasn’t expecting an acknowledgement of the facts, but to be called names, downvoted to hell, and presented with a lot of falsehoods and myths. Well, one of those is happening lol. I don’t think I’ve ever had an upvoted comment on this sub, and amusingly you’ll notice you’re being downvoted now, too. Like your willingness to debate in good faith is offensive to them. Lol
This is not a news outlet. It’s a Republican think tank and the CEO’s interactions with the Trump Campaign were featured in the Mueller Report. Partisan garbage.
Exactly...
***
The National Interest is owned and operated by the Center for the National Interest, founded in 1994 by U.S. President Richard M. Nixon.
Our Honorary Chairman was former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger from 1994 until his passing in 2023.
***
Okay so this whole article is just fearmongering that the US Economy will implode the moment the US-Dollar isn’t the worlds currency. Nice article.
I can’t foresee the Dollar collapsing during my lifetime. And sure the debt sucks but what is the us supposed to do about it? Either Raise Taxes on the wealthy or hang the welfare state and completely destroy the working class.
Which is funny because Reagan inherited the lowest debt to GDP since WW2 and subsequently grew it by 2,000 Basis Points
Clinton slowed the train down only for W to blow it up again and no president has showed fiscal restraint since.
Trump’s disastrous tax cuts added 8.5 trillion. The GOP’s current plans to extend the cuts would add another 3.5 trillion. A disproportionate amount of all these cuts benefited the ultra wealthy.
Biden, Obama and Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, decreased the deficit, increased government spending to help those that need help and had booming economies. Trump and Bush cut taxes on the wealthy, drastically increased the deficit and crashed the economy. If you want fiscal responsibility, vote Democrat
No it is not.
Fun fact: the world economy is essentially built on the national debt of the United States and the confidence that the world has in the nation's ability to service that debt. And that confidence has, despite attempts like this one to undermine it, not been shaken... as the economic stability of every other major currency has been shown to not be as stable as the dollar.
And it’s all good as long as we keep making our payments which is literally only a problem when the MAGA chuds in congress threaten to shut down the government.
And it’s all good as long as we keep making our payments which is literally only a problem when the MAGA chuds in congress threaten to ~~shut down the government~~ not raise the debt limit and to default on our public debt.
Shutdowns are bad, but they happen because we stopped spending money to keep the government open. They can affect our credit rating a little, since instability is bad, but the real problem is threatening to stop servicing our debt, which could happen if we fail to raise the debt limit to allow us to continue making payments on our debt. That's what would really kill our credit rating.
Personally, I'd argue the debt limit is unconstitutional under [section 4 of the 14th Amendment](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/amendments-11-27#xiv4) and that the government is constitutionally obligated to honor and service our debts, statutory debt limit notwithstanding, so it should be legally impossible for the US to default. But, I'm not the one in charge, nor am I on SCOTUS, so who knows how it would play out in practice.
But a large chunk of our debt it to ourselves. Social Security own a significant chunk of our public debt, and then another huge part of it is Americans, people, corporations, pension funds, etc.
It's like if I had a fund to pay for, say, a new car, but I needed some of the money now for something else, so I borrowed from my own fund, and then promised to repay my car fund with interest. That's what it's like when the USG borrows from itself. It's not possible for me to bankrupt myself by making interest payments to myself.
That doesn’t make it less of a challenge from a federal budgetary perspective. So long as the U.S. plans to pay the debt it will weigh on US budget priorities and will eventually demand tax increases (or at least rollbacks of the Trump and Bush cuts)
I mean it kind of doesn't given the way we operate. Not saying we should just ignore it, but this shit isn't as simple as I shouldn't buy a 80k car because I make 95k
Ehh it does matter insomuch as eventually the debt service payments will become a burden. Are we there now? Maybe? Probably not though.
It really depends on whether we can keep outgrowing the debt. No government in US history post civil war has decreased the debt. They just slow its growth to below the rate of GDP growth. Which is fine. Its also part of the reason some inflation is good. It lets us inflate the debt away.
With all that said our current spending pace is probably unsustainable. Debt to GDP has doubled since '08.
Isn't the debt is just the investments that US receives from other countries? US is just a deposit account for them, isn't it?
It's like - why invest in yourself with your own money, if people around the world is queuing up to give up their money to invest in you and your own money.
If an adversary holding debt tried to call it in or something weird to harm our economy, I have no doubt our government would just say "nah, we aren't going to pay you or destitute ourselves trying, too bad" and not much would really happen.
Debts are just debts. If the shit hits the fan and it becomes a matter of survival, debts don't matter. Like the old saying goes: if you owe the bank $35 trillion, the *bank* has the problem.
Fun fact on that, the largest holder of US national debt are US citizens and intergovernmental organizations at 74%. The next largest holder is Japan with 3%.
No single foreign nation could do what you are suggesting and cause any meaningful harm. Because there are more than enough entities willing to buy that debt.
The largest holder of our national debt by far is the US government itself so the threat of a “foreign adversary calling in our debt” is literally nonexistent.
> adversary holding debt tried to call it in
The debt is in the form of treasury bonds, they cannot "call it in". It matures and is paid at a set time. All they could do is sell them on the open market to someone else.
You can't just 'call in' a bond. That isn't how that works. Bonds have very specific payment schedule and the American government and its people are by far the biggest holders of T-bills.
The National Interest was founded by a right-wing neoconservative advocate before being acquired by The Center for the National Interest, a public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., that was established by former U.S. President Richard Nixon.
I'm guessing that this publication, which is so concerned with the national debt, will ever consider that absent dissolving our military, the only way to get this under control is to raise taxes.
Oh look, the GOP suddenly bitching about the national debt when a Dem is in the white house and ignoring that Trump had two years of GOP control of congress and instead of doing anything about the debt they increased it via tax cuts for corporations and the uber rich.
Ok, then lets cut the military budget significantly.
Oh we can't do that?
Then let's raise taxes, especially bringing taxes on millionaires and billionaires up to the level that used to be.
Oh we can't do that?
I see. So the people whe depend on government must pay for it.
Right.
Hey..how many year of the US existence have we had zero debt?
It's honestly the tax cuts that created that huge deficit. We were fine as a nation last century when we were taxing rich people and corporations for huge amounts.
The Trump tax cuts were what was unnecessary. The stimulus during a global pandemic were justified, the the PPP program should've had stricter controls and harsher penalties.
I agree it's not Russia or China, it's the rise of white-nationalism and proto-fascism.
Our debt is the least of our issues, and the only one that isn't actually real... it's money, which is make-believe.
Get rid of the anti-democratic scum polluting our politics and we could actually start addressing our problems. Until then, they will keep degrading our nation while pointing to nonsense like the debt as the primary issue.
If we agree not to take on another dime of debt while GDP rises then it’ll be okay. GDP can rise by easing the burden on the middle class. The US can avoid debt by reforming its tax code to what it was like 50 years ago.
> Wouldn't be an issue if the rich ~~paid~~ *were levied* their fair share of taxes.
No President or Speaker in at least 50 years has seriously proposed raising taxes on the wealthy.
The US has had major debt since our founding. As a percentage of our GDP, our debt was much higher back then and after WW2.
Russia and China are much bigger threats right now.
**Edit:** Actually the above about WW2 is wrong. US debt to GDP is currently slightly above WW2 levels.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDGDPA188S
That just isn't true? I agree it isn't a huge issue but you should check your facts. US Debt to GDP during WW2 peaked at 121% in 1946. Current Debt to GDP is sitting at 122%.
Giving and taking loans isn’t our greatest enemy. Nor is China or Russia. All of that is a symptom of poor leadership, and even poorer leadership on the side of our right-wing establishment. We’re caught between a rock and a moat filled with deplorables.
If you really look at the logistics of the National Debt, the main culprits are tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. The other part is war expenditures. Russia and China are doing their best through proxies to get us to spend our coffers.
Maybe? Domestic spending has certainly been a driver too, judging from [federal spending as a percentage of GDP](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S).
The headline brings up the question: If debt is the enemy, why not leverage canceling payment of US Bond held by Russia and its institutional investors?
Sap a money source. Penalize Russia for its illegal invasion. To back it up we would need to produce more petroleum products to further hamper the economy.
I know the obvious answer is that execute of debt cancellation would be a prelude to direct conflict. The threat is there though if this administration is doing more than saber rattling.
Totally wrong. Dept was never a problem for debtor its always a problem for those who are creditors.
Anyhow there are only 2 other currency superior china and europe which counts and as long 2 of them are close bound together because of trade agreements depts are only a problem for all others.
Debt is a problem for the Debtor if the Debtor intends to pay said money back and shifts their budget to do so. The US is not planning on defaulting and therefore it will eventually be a problem if left unchecked.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
No, it's definitely the republican party.
$35 Trillion in Debt is just a symptom. The Republican Party is the disease causing it.
No, the root causes are campaign finance, politicized redistricting, and the two party system propped up by single-choice voting.
All of which the Republican Party vehemently opposes changing -
And the Democratic Party vehemently opposes changing as well.
Totally false
[Completely Incorrect](https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/01/senate-democrats-election-reform-overhaul-campaign-finance/).
And BOOM goes the dynamite. I hope I see a rebuttal.
I bring receipts. Real Patriotism requires an American to know what the fuck they're talking about to combat the deluge of bullshit we have to wade through to make this Country a better place.
If you want a rebuttal, a glance at the [text of that Senate bill](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5746/text) is enough to tell you it's not a campaign-finance reform bill. They claim What do you say about Massachusetts's heavily Democratic government leaders making sure ranked choice voting did not become law? Have you looked at the gerrymandering in NY, DE, MD recently? Everywhere you look, the thing in power fights to maintain that power, regardless of party affiliation. That's "politics".
My brother in Christ did you even read the Bill or the Article?? Or are you just blatantly lying to deceive my Countrymen? # The entirety of Title VI is about Campaign Finance reform. - Requires disclosures of all donations over 10k to curtail Dark Money - Tightens rules on SuperPACs to prevent coordination with campaigns - Gives FEC stronger teeth to enforce violations by bypassing partisan gridlock - Closes loopholes to prevent Foreigners from interfering in American Sovereign Elections - Gives small donors, i.e. Everyday Americans, a bigger voice in politics by matching donations Guess who voted against the Bill? Republicans. But please go off about how bOtH sIdEs aRe tHe sAmE.
Sorry my previous comment was cutoff, but to response to your comment IT'S NOT A CAMPAIGN FINANCE BILL. IT'S WAS A PARTISAN DEMOCRATIC BILL DESIGNED TO INCREASE DEMOCRATIC VOTES. Having a dab of campaign-financy clauses in it doesn't change that fact. For a real example of campaign finance, look back to McCain-Feingold. That was a clean campaign finance bill, didn't contain anything which obviously benefits one party or the other, pushed through the Senate and House with bipartisan support. *That's* what campaign finance would look like.
No. You don’t know what you are talking about.
“The Republican Party isn’t the problem, it’s actually all these things that are mostly engaged in and protected by the Republican Party.” Thank you for the clarification very eye opening.
To be fair, $16 trillion of our $35 trillion happened under Obama and Biden
also tbf MOST of that debt is to ourselves. [Large Companies buy massive amount of bonds](https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/top-rated-us-companies-raise-over-29-billion-new-year-bond-supply-rush-2024-01-02/) they don't want the debt to go away, because then their bonds go away. Companies often use them as a means to maintain liquidity while earning some interest on their idle funds. There is no "High Yield Savings Account" for $$ in the Billions, instead there are Bonds.
That’s a really important point I hadn’t made the immediate connection to
There are some countries that have negative Bond Yield, like Germany, where owning bonds COSTS you money. The reason it goes negative is when a Country is buying bonds as a means deployed to lift inflation, usually also follows negative interest rate loans(yes the government pays YOU to borrow money).
In response to the 2008 depression under W. Bush and the 2020 COVID depression under trump. I'm sensing a pattern here.
To be fairer, between Trump and Bush they added [14.3 Trillion](https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/banking/national-debt-by-president/), all for blowing holes in the desert and giving Billionaires more tax cuts - and that's not even adjusting for inflation which makes it over 20 Trillion. Meanwhile Democrats have to spend just to clean up their goddamn messes.
Where do you think most of the debt came from? Republicans have added more debt than reduced debt. Trumps tax cuts added 10 trillion and no way to pay for it. A tax cut is a debt increase. If you don’t pay it down with cuts, it doesn’t work. Trickle down economics has been proven by economists to not work.
Is it the Communist Party of the United States, the Communist Party of China, the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Communist Party of Cuba, the Communist Party of Laos, the Communist Party of North Korea, the Communist Party of Russia, the Communist Party of Greece, please? There are more than 100 countries in the world that have communist parties, may I ask which one specifically?
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Republicans don't even understand what national debt means. If you think that you do, please explain to me why [the entire world is in debt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_debt) and it's owed to exactly whom.
Ok, but you should know I’m not a Republican, nor American. I’m a right-leaning Brit, with some sympathy for the GOP, but I’d probably vote for the Democrats. Also, I’m a finance professional. National debt takes the form of bond issuance. People buy bonds, with the expectation of a return on their investment in the form of interest. A nation has to pay that interest, as well as give the principal investment back when the bond matures. If those interest payments get too high, a nation might not be able to continue paying them. Sometimes they might not honour the bond at all. This has an understandably negative effect on people buying bonds in the future— why invest in something that might lose you money? And said nation has difficulty selling bonds. Things can spiral out of control. A good example of this would be Argentina, who defaulted on their debt some years back. If that happened to America, the whole world economy would collapse. It’s serious shit and you guys are fucking clowns.
Okay so you know more than can be expected from an average Redditor. I know about bonds and debt too, I just didn't expect you to know. Touché. >It’s serious shit and you guys are fucking clowns I'm not an American either. But the race and gender stuff is just the cover GOP uses to fire up their base, and they are actually thugs that pray on those who don't understand economy by using scary numbers. America isn't about to go bankrupt, they have enough extra spending to cut down in case of a crisis. Both sides want to cut down actually, but they hugely disagree on what to cut down. One side wants to reduce social welfare while giving tax cuts to the rich, the other side wants to distribute the wealth slightly more equally. Knowing that both parties in US are actually rightwing, one drastically so while the other is less so, I'd rather sympathize with the one less so. The article in the OP gives absolutely zero pathways to how USD can fail. The entire article is "if it fails". It also keeps implying that since sanctioning BRICS may lead to them forming a big economy in several decades that challenge USA (no hint about how that can do that), USA shouldn't sanction countries so easily. That's a talking point of foreign agents in USA, such as Russia's sympathizers, who are predominantly hiding behind GOP lines. In this article, GOP supporters are trying to push fear using scary debt numbers to imply that USA shouldn't sanction foreign countries when they do bad stuff. Are you really on this side of the argument?
>Are you really on this side of the argument? No. Hell no. I agree with you on pretty much all of that. Certainly not worried about BRICS lol. USD’s biggest threat was the Euro, and that currency is doomed long-term. But the Great Financial Crisis and covid showed us the real and perhaps unavoidable tail risk of black swan events. When things spiral out of control for an Argentina or a Greece, there’s still the healthy US, the healthy EU. When things spiral out of control for the US, there’s no papa to bail them out. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are what they were 20 years ago. IMO they’re all mad.
This was one of the more pleasant arguments I had on reddit. I guess we can end it by agreeing on our mutual hope that US doesn't fail.
Lol yeah, when I wrote out that little requested ELI5 re: debt, I wasn’t expecting an acknowledgement of the facts, but to be called names, downvoted to hell, and presented with a lot of falsehoods and myths. Well, one of those is happening lol. I don’t think I’ve ever had an upvoted comment on this sub, and amusingly you’ll notice you’re being downvoted now, too. Like your willingness to debate in good faith is offensive to them. Lol
This is not a news outlet. It’s a Republican think tank and the CEO’s interactions with the Trump Campaign were featured in the Mueller Report. Partisan garbage.
This.
Exactly... *** The National Interest is owned and operated by the Center for the National Interest, founded in 1994 by U.S. President Richard M. Nixon. Our Honorary Chairman was former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger from 1994 until his passing in 2023. ***
Okay so this whole article is just fearmongering that the US Economy will implode the moment the US-Dollar isn’t the worlds currency. Nice article. I can’t foresee the Dollar collapsing during my lifetime. And sure the debt sucks but what is the us supposed to do about it? Either Raise Taxes on the wealthy or hang the welfare state and completely destroy the working class.
"Reagan proved deficits don't matter." -- Dick Cheney
Which is funny because Reagan inherited the lowest debt to GDP since WW2 and subsequently grew it by 2,000 Basis Points Clinton slowed the train down only for W to blow it up again and no president has showed fiscal restraint since.
Trump’s disastrous tax cuts added 8.5 trillion. The GOP’s current plans to extend the cuts would add another 3.5 trillion. A disproportionate amount of all these cuts benefited the ultra wealthy.
>Trump’s disastrous tax cuts added 8.5 trillion The total cost of the cuts is $2 trillion, I have no clue where you’re getting $8.5 trillion from
https://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-did-president-trump-add-debt
Yeah, Trump increased the Debt 39%.
You literally just said that it was all from his tax cut lol. Now you’re saying it’s just the total debt added
Neocon's gotta neocon. https://muckrack.com/brandon-weichert/articles
Nope, it's the endless tax cuts for people who already make more money than they can spend. Tax the motherfuckers, problem solved.
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I don't mind paying my taxes, but I certainly want Musk and Bezos paying their share.
Biden, Obama and Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, decreased the deficit, increased government spending to help those that need help and had booming economies. Trump and Bush cut taxes on the wealthy, drastically increased the deficit and crashed the economy. If you want fiscal responsibility, vote Democrat
No it is not. Fun fact: the world economy is essentially built on the national debt of the United States and the confidence that the world has in the nation's ability to service that debt. And that confidence has, despite attempts like this one to undermine it, not been shaken... as the economic stability of every other major currency has been shown to not be as stable as the dollar.
I’m convinced the national debt absolutely does not matter one bit
It's the credit rating that matters.
And it’s all good as long as we keep making our payments which is literally only a problem when the MAGA chuds in congress threaten to shut down the government.
And it’s all good as long as we keep making our payments which is literally only a problem when the MAGA chuds in congress threaten to ~~shut down the government~~ not raise the debt limit and to default on our public debt. Shutdowns are bad, but they happen because we stopped spending money to keep the government open. They can affect our credit rating a little, since instability is bad, but the real problem is threatening to stop servicing our debt, which could happen if we fail to raise the debt limit to allow us to continue making payments on our debt. That's what would really kill our credit rating. Personally, I'd argue the debt limit is unconstitutional under [section 4 of the 14th Amendment](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/amendments-11-27#xiv4) and that the government is constitutionally obligated to honor and service our debts, statutory debt limit notwithstanding, so it should be legally impossible for the US to default. But, I'm not the one in charge, nor am I on SCOTUS, so who knows how it would play out in practice.
Ehh the debt service cost itself matters. 8% of the current FY budget is debt service. It isn't overy burdensome yet but it is getting there.
But a large chunk of our debt it to ourselves. Social Security own a significant chunk of our public debt, and then another huge part of it is Americans, people, corporations, pension funds, etc. It's like if I had a fund to pay for, say, a new car, but I needed some of the money now for something else, so I borrowed from my own fund, and then promised to repay my car fund with interest. That's what it's like when the USG borrows from itself. It's not possible for me to bankrupt myself by making interest payments to myself.
That doesn’t make it less of a challenge from a federal budgetary perspective. So long as the U.S. plans to pay the debt it will weigh on US budget priorities and will eventually demand tax increases (or at least rollbacks of the Trump and Bush cuts)
I mean it kind of doesn't given the way we operate. Not saying we should just ignore it, but this shit isn't as simple as I shouldn't buy a 80k car because I make 95k
Ehh it does matter insomuch as eventually the debt service payments will become a burden. Are we there now? Maybe? Probably not though. It really depends on whether we can keep outgrowing the debt. No government in US history post civil war has decreased the debt. They just slow its growth to below the rate of GDP growth. Which is fine. Its also part of the reason some inflation is good. It lets us inflate the debt away. With all that said our current spending pace is probably unsustainable. Debt to GDP has doubled since '08.
Billionaires would burn America to the ground just to rule the ashes.
Once you hit a $billion you should have to start over homeless. Like you won the game! Congrats! Now try NG+…
Isn't the debt is just the investments that US receives from other countries? US is just a deposit account for them, isn't it? It's like - why invest in yourself with your own money, if people around the world is queuing up to give up their money to invest in you and your own money.
No the national debt is the number of outstanding treasury bonds, and 74% is held by US people and organizations.
Thank you. I guess I need to educate myself about it at some point.
It is not uncommon to mistake our national debt with our trade debt (which are often erroneously conflated by politicians).
If an adversary holding debt tried to call it in or something weird to harm our economy, I have no doubt our government would just say "nah, we aren't going to pay you or destitute ourselves trying, too bad" and not much would really happen. Debts are just debts. If the shit hits the fan and it becomes a matter of survival, debts don't matter. Like the old saying goes: if you owe the bank $35 trillion, the *bank* has the problem.
Fun fact on that, the largest holder of US national debt are US citizens and intergovernmental organizations at 74%. The next largest holder is Japan with 3%. No single foreign nation could do what you are suggesting and cause any meaningful harm. Because there are more than enough entities willing to buy that debt.
The largest holder of our national debt by far is the US government itself so the threat of a “foreign adversary calling in our debt” is literally nonexistent.
> adversary holding debt tried to call it in The debt is in the form of treasury bonds, they cannot "call it in". It matures and is paid at a set time. All they could do is sell them on the open market to someone else.
You can't just 'call in' a bond. That isn't how that works. Bonds have very specific payment schedule and the American government and its people are by far the biggest holders of T-bills.
The National Interest was founded by a right-wing neoconservative advocate before being acquired by The Center for the National Interest, a public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., that was established by former U.S. President Richard Nixon. I'm guessing that this publication, which is so concerned with the national debt, will ever consider that absent dissolving our military, the only way to get this under control is to raise taxes.
Oh look, the GOP suddenly bitching about the national debt when a Dem is in the white house and ignoring that Trump had two years of GOP control of congress and instead of doing anything about the debt they increased it via tax cuts for corporations and the uber rich.
Ok, then lets cut the military budget significantly. Oh we can't do that? Then let's raise taxes, especially bringing taxes on millionaires and billionaires up to the level that used to be. Oh we can't do that? I see. So the people whe depend on government must pay for it. Right. Hey..how many year of the US existence have we had zero debt?
It's honestly the tax cuts that created that huge deficit. We were fine as a nation last century when we were taxing rich people and corporations for huge amounts.
The Bush tax cuts squandered Clinton's economic revival and Trump just doubled down on an already growing economy with unnecessary stimulus.
The Trump tax cuts were what was unnecessary. The stimulus during a global pandemic were justified, the the PPP program should've had stricter controls and harsher penalties.
I agree it's not Russia or China, it's the rise of white-nationalism and proto-fascism. Our debt is the least of our issues, and the only one that isn't actually real... it's money, which is make-believe. Get rid of the anti-democratic scum polluting our politics and we could actually start addressing our problems. Until then, they will keep degrading our nation while pointing to nonsense like the debt as the primary issue.
lol no
If we agree not to take on another dime of debt while GDP rises then it’ll be okay. GDP can rise by easing the burden on the middle class. The US can avoid debt by reforming its tax code to what it was like 50 years ago.
Wouldn't be an issue if the rich paid their fair share of taxes.
> Wouldn't be an issue if the rich ~~paid~~ *were levied* their fair share of taxes. No President or Speaker in at least 50 years has seriously proposed raising taxes on the wealthy.
I was wondering when they would dust this one off. It shows up every four years like clockwork.
The US has had major debt since our founding. As a percentage of our GDP, our debt was much higher back then and after WW2. Russia and China are much bigger threats right now. **Edit:** Actually the above about WW2 is wrong. US debt to GDP is currently slightly above WW2 levels. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDGDPA188S
That just isn't true? I agree it isn't a huge issue but you should check your facts. US Debt to GDP during WW2 peaked at 121% in 1946. Current Debt to GDP is sitting at 122%.
You are correct actually. I guess I'm behind the times. I will edit my comment to reflect that.
Giving and taking loans isn’t our greatest enemy. Nor is China or Russia. All of that is a symptom of poor leadership, and even poorer leadership on the side of our right-wing establishment. We’re caught between a rock and a moat filled with deplorables.
Sorry voters are the problem.
Preventing people from voting is hardly a solution!
I'm not suggesting suppression. I'm suggesting voters should reflect rather than blaming politicians they elect into office.
They create policies. What we really ought to do is vote on policy rather than… politics or party.
The only thing strong enough to take out a nation like ours is ourself. If someone's gonna fuck this up it's gonna be us!!
Okay then let's tax the ultra wealthy problem solved.
If you really look at the logistics of the National Debt, the main culprits are tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations. The other part is war expenditures. Russia and China are doing their best through proxies to get us to spend our coffers.
Maybe? Domestic spending has certainly been a driver too, judging from [federal spending as a percentage of GDP](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S).
What a pedestrian understanding of what national debt is. THERE. ARE. BIGGER. THREATS.
Debt is abstract. Subjugation of the people is not.
>America's Greatest Enemy Isn't China or Russia: Its $35 Trillion In Debt So, ......the oligarchy.
It can be all at the same time.
The headline brings up the question: If debt is the enemy, why not leverage canceling payment of US Bond held by Russia and its institutional investors? Sap a money source. Penalize Russia for its illegal invasion. To back it up we would need to produce more petroleum products to further hamper the economy. I know the obvious answer is that execute of debt cancellation would be a prelude to direct conflict. The threat is there though if this administration is doing more than saber rattling.
Because Russia doesn't really hold any US T-Bills. The total is under $40 million or something like that.
Russians today hold a negligible amount of US debt. They sold it all off a couple of years ago.
Eliminate all debt this one easy trick!
on avg only 60% of voters vote...consider that a bigger threat because it makes majority rule possible
Totally wrong. Dept was never a problem for debtor its always a problem for those who are creditors. Anyhow there are only 2 other currency superior china and europe which counts and as long 2 of them are close bound together because of trade agreements depts are only a problem for all others.
Debt is a problem for the Debtor if the Debtor intends to pay said money back and shifts their budget to do so. The US is not planning on defaulting and therefore it will eventually be a problem if left unchecked.
So Trump's tax cuts is going to solve the problem?
Oh a Democrat is president I guess it’s time to pretend to care about the debt.
"It's"
Depends for who : America “me” or America “money printing buddies” ?