Does our national debt matter?
- Thread starter BrunoMars420
- Start date
Only mattered from 1/20/09 to 1/20/17. Tea party was all up in arms about it.
Can’t seem to find them now.
Nuanced I suspect.
Can’t seem to find them now.
Nuanced I suspect.
This is what made me lose all confidence in anything a politician says to get elected. You get to DC and lose all values
It only matters to whichever party is not in the white house. Once their party is president, it no longer matters. Both parties are guilty of that.
hawkeyetraveler
HR All-American
Debt absolutely matters.
8% of our Taxes go to pay interest on federal debt. $375 Billion in 2020.
That is money that could be used for infrastructure, for healthcare PPE, for vaccine development, for shoring up social security, or...here’s a thought...to simply give back to the American people.
How can anyone say debt does not matter. Each year we increase our debt obligation by more than the inflation rate. This means every year we get less bang for the buck from our federal taxes. We are irresponsibly borrowing from our children’s future.
It is 100% wrong and both parties are to blame.
8% of our Taxes go to pay interest on federal debt. $375 Billion in 2020.
That is money that could be used for infrastructure, for healthcare PPE, for vaccine development, for shoring up social security, or...here’s a thought...to simply give back to the American people.
How can anyone say debt does not matter. Each year we increase our debt obligation by more than the inflation rate. This means every year we get less bang for the buck from our federal taxes. We are irresponsibly borrowing from our children’s future.
It is 100% wrong and both parties are to blame.
Nah, we can always get one of them reverse mortgages.
Bill Clinton raised taxes a whopping 3%. had a budget surplus and was paying down the national debt.
We havn't had a balanced budget since Bill Clinton did it four years in a row. We have not reduced our public debt since the Clinton years either. Those that don't think it is possible are wrong. It can be done and it must be done.
When interest rates return to historical normalcy it will matter....
Bill Clinton was elected president almost three decades ago. I don’t know that his situation is relevant. The tech boom helped him a bunch.
Having said that, Republicans are nuts if they think we can cut taxes out of a budget deficit and Democrats are nuts if they think we can raise taxes alone.
Bull. It mattered to Dems during GWB and how much the war cost. They fought the budget bills every time. Stop lying.
The dollar and inflation has been fine and our national debt is as high as ever. Look at the dollar index and our inflation numbers before responding. Again, what is our breaking point? All I have heard since I started paying attention to politics is this notion that inflation is going to kill us financially yet no one is able to pinpoint the exact number of when and if it is even possible with our economy?
You didn't refute anything he has to say and he is incidentally not lying.
You may also be correct in that complaint about the cost was one of the major arguments against the war in Iraq. But that was on a specific war and the main point of those arguments was that this is a war that we don't need to fight in the first place.
Lol.
Have you seen the Tea Party protest in DC since Trump was elected?
Have you seen the Tea Party hang Trump in effigy?
Did the Democrats refuse to timely raise the debt ceiling like the GOP did to shutdown the government and drop our credit rating?
Look, I know it’s difficult for you to understand, as a Trump supporter, but facts are not lies.
Lies are things like saying that we will have a health care replacement bill signed in 2 weeks and the virus will be down to zero very soon.
"It only mattered from.."
Is a lie to push a narrative. Some liberals are dumb enough and ignorant enough to fall for it.
The ND mattered to Republicans in the 90's, the Dems in the 00's and Rep's in during the Obama years. Each side used it as a tool to advance their agendas.
Stop lying.
Democrats - Tax and Spend
Republicans - Cut Tax and Spend
Republicans - Cut Tax and Spend
Also our current debt to GDP is 13% lower then it was from the previous high in 1946 but our economy is a lot bigger compared to then. After 1946 our country exploded economically, again does debt matter and what is the breaking point for our economy?
It does but the only group willing to bitch about it are the ones not in power.
Both sides are to blame.
Both sides are to blame.
That is his point.
However that particular weapon has always been brought out by Republicans far more than Democrats.
This is the big issue here. In 1946 we just came out of a massive war that we did have to fight and things looked better quickly because our economy exploded. (Heavily in part due to the fact that we were one of the very few industrialized nations to not see significant warfare on the home front.) Our economy isn't likely to explode like that again and we havn't been in a major war that was forced upon us either. (Afganistan was by comparison to WW2 a minor dust up.)
hawkeyetraveler
HR All-American
You misunderstood my point, but thanks for the unnecessary snark.
My point was that our interest payments are growing faster than the inflation rate. This means that, in today’s dollar terms, we are spending more than ever before on interest. I was not correlating interest expense and inflation.
What’s the breaking point? I guess that is up to each voter. For me we passed the breaking point when we cut taxes without decreasing spending. That was insanity in a world where we had a great economy but crumbling infrastructure, issues with healthcare, issues with education and an unnecessarily large military.
There is no breaking point. But what will happen is the interest rate we have to pay to attract lenders (bond buyers) will rise, and this coupled with the higher overall debt will consume so much of the tax revenue that we will either need to raise taxes substantially (killing GDP growth) and/or cut services (killing people).
Not gonna be good.
I've said before, if anyone ever gets truly serious about balancing the budget and/or paying down the debt, it will likely require at least a temporary tax hike as well as budget cuts, particularly to Defense AND Entitlements.
I'm not an economist Bruno, but it's just not conceivable to me that we can continue to borrow and add to the deficit/national debt indefinitely and not have a breaking point eventually. Perhaps not in the near-future, but I worry about what is possible 30 years out. Deficit spending makes sense during times of emergencies, but when times are good, that should be used as an opportunity to pay down the debt somewhat. Maybe we never totally get it under control, but at least it doesn't run away from us.
Probably completely unrealistic, but imagine if for example we rolled out a new penny sales tax, the proceeds from which could be used SOLELY for paying down the debt, and it would expire when it got to a certain level of our GDP or something. That would help tremendously.
Do you honestly think the Fed will be raising the interest rates to “normal” levels anytime soon? The folks running the fed are not stupid and understand all the ramifications of this.
GDP growth hasn’t been above 4% since 2000 and has only been above 3% three times since 2000. Sorry to break it to you but the USAs Normal GDP growth will be 1-2% for a long time.
Well what is the number for under control?
None of us are economist but we all throw vague statements or buzzwords out there in regards to the national debt which is I guess my point I have been trying to make. We always say we are to the tipping point, kicking the can down the road, we aren’t able to sustain, etc... yet all we see is no tipping point, the can is still, and we are sustaining pretty damn well.
Bruno - Your points will all remain valid until that distant day when a unknown man in a yet unknown land refuses to accept a U.S. Dollar in exchange for his goods or services and it catches on when at that point his refusal will spread faster than Covid19.
I'll agree that economists and politicians like to make alarmist statements designed to shock and scare people that are often doomsday scenarios about what could happen down the road. I'm sorry I can't give you a precise number, and anyone who does is just making it up.
Yes, we are sustaining...for now. The can hasn't tipped over...yet. But actions have consequences, and we can't just continue to borrow and spend without knowing that there isn't a limit beyond which we start encountering diminishing returns. I don't anticipate it will be soon, but that it could happen in the next 30 years I see as more than possible. I just don't see how you can add $1 trillion to the debt every year and not have that blow up in our face eventually.
Probably shouldn’t now but it should during “normal” times.
I wish they only spent what they took in. The party in control can decide to spend it on submarines or sex changes for prisoners but they can only spend what they have. If people don’t like what they spend it on you can shape that in November.
greed and the desire to be re-elected overrule common sense
I wish they only spent what they took in. The party in control can decide to spend it on submarines or sex changes for prisoners but they can only spend what they have. If people don’t like what they spend it on you can shape that in November.
greed and the desire to be re-elected overrule common sense
It is absolutely going to take a combination of tax increases and spending cuts (total, not across the board).
Now, get one party to agree to one of those and both parties to agree on the other.
There is no singular number or percentage of GDP that is a breaking point. It is a continuum. More debt is worse than less debt, debt as a higher percentage of GDP is worse than a lower percentage. It won't be like going off a cliff at a certain point.
The country will never go bankrupt because it can always print more money. This causes inflation. So, when your money buys a lot less in terms of goods and services, you can thank the debt the government has run up.
But the fed has tools in place to fight inflation like they have been doing.
I understand inflation and how it works lol but What is the point of massive inflation in terms of GDP to debt for America? If our private sector is producing and our national debt is high and inflation in check, does it matter?
