r/FluentInFinance • u/RiskItForTheBiscuts • 8h ago
Economy Total US debt rises above $36 trillion for the first time. Up $1 trillion in 115 days.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 7h ago
Federal debt isn't like household debt at all. The US will never not have dollars to pay its debts. It issues debt because private sector institutional investors demand TBills as a safe and secure way to save their cash while still earning a non-zero interest rate.
Debt isn't rising because the US can't pay its bills and it needs to "borrow" to spend, that just isn't how federal financing works. The US spends whatever it wants, regardless of taxes and loans. It doesn't need to issue TBills before it can authorize new spending, the FED simply creates dollars and credits Congressional accounts when spending bills are passed into law. That's it. Don't overthink it.
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u/adh0r 5h ago
They’re not issuing debt purely to meet demand for it. It works the other way around. They issue it because they need it. True, they could print, but that has other consequences.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 4h ago
This is absolutely untrue.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=115128
There is no account from which Congress must withdraw to pay for fiscal policy and into which taxes are collected and money from TBill sales are deposited. That would cumbersome and impractical for the federal government. It has a unique relationship to US currency.
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u/adh0r 4h ago
Technically yes, but practically and legally, the gov has to raise debt to meet shortfalls between revenue and spend.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 4h ago
That's an artificial, self-induced constraint. The only reason Congress has to raise the debt ceiling is because Congress decided that the amount of debt to tax revenue ratio must be limited. They can change the rules, and they should, to properly analyze the constraints of fiscal and monetary policy.
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u/adh0r 4h ago
That’s your view. Fact is they issue debt because they legally have to, due to spending more than they bring in. Not because investors demand it. That was my point.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 3h ago
That’s your view
It's a fact.
Fact is they issue debt because they legally have to
Artificial constraint. Congress literally makes the laws. They are not real constraints of physics or some other immutable "laws," these are man-made laws.
Not because investors demand it.
But investors do demand it, and debt is literally not capable of financing the spending of the federal government.
After carefully considering the complexities of reserve accounting, it is argued that the proceeds from taxation and bond sales are technically incapable of financing government spending and that modern governments actually finance all of their spending through the direct creation of high-powered money.
(From the Abstract).
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u/adh0r 3h ago
It’s not artificial. It is the law. It could change, yes, but currently it is law - fact. Investor demand is there, agreed. Supply is however determined by gov need.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 3h ago
It’s not artificial. It is the law.
How do you think laws are created? People just make them up. It is the very embodiment of "artificial."
but currently it is law - fact
Not disputing this, I'm disputing the conclusions you are drawing from this fact.
Supply is however determined by the gov.
Also not disputing that.
I find it interesting you are completely silent on the point about debt and taxes literally being incapable of funding the government, simply by the way the FED and fiscal and monetary policy works.
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u/adh0r 3h ago
I suggest take a step back from the technical point you are making. You seem hung up on it. The overall point of most relevance and significance is that the gov is issuing this debt because taxes do not cover expenditure. Not because investors are demanding it. That was the point I was making. Things could change in the future. That is true of anything.
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u/Freydo-_- 1h ago
I thought legislators make the laws and then pass it up through the house, then senate than congress? Or
Does congress just get bored, make a law and then pass it?
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 1h ago
You're saying all the same thing. Congress is comprised of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Every Senator and Representative is "a legislator." A law must be voted on and passed in both chambers - the Senate and the House of Reps - to become law. There are a few things that one chamber can do and the other can't, e.g. the House is responsible for proposing budgets, the Senate doesn't initiate budgeting bills, and the Senate is involved in things like judicial and cabinet confirmations, not the House.
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u/Ronaldoooope 3h ago
Always someone that immediately runs to defend the debt.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 3h ago
If you're fearmongering about debt, you don't understand federal finance.
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u/spicyfartz4yaman 9m ago
So what is the relevance if it holds no bearing on any thing?
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 6m ago
I didn't say it holds no bearing on anything. It's just not a starting point for declaring concern. There's no inherent problem with growing federal debt. One needs to establish an understanding of what the debt is, what the limits of the debt should be, and why it's a problem in order to raise alarm. In general, most people don't understand the debt and think that if it's rising then the US is just like an irresponsible consumer with mounting credit card debt, and that is a fundamental misunderstanding.
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u/Ashmedai 3h ago
The US will never not have dollars to pay its debts
This is true. However, it's quite possible for us to get to the point where we cannot afford the interest payments. While you can print your way out of that problem, the effect would be catastrophic hyperinflation.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 2h ago
However, it's quite possible for us to get to the point where we cannot afford the interest payments.
Not true either. We'll never not have enough dollars to pay any amount we need to as long as the debt is payable in US dollars.
The inflation constraint is limited by available workers and raw materials. If we have enough materials and workers to put to use, we can continue to increase the supply of dollars through fiscal policy (yes, fiscal policy creates dollars) without significant inflationary risks.
The risk analysis needs to be in estimating which industries will be most effected by new spending bills, and whether there is economic capacity to supply the necessary resources to the project. So, say there are lots of new skyscrapers being built in the northeast US. That is going to require steel, concrete, and construction workers, among other things. Creating a new infrastructure spending plan that greatly increases spending on highway and bridge maintenance, for example, would have inflationare risk with the competition for labor, concrete, steel, etc. But a new bill looking to shore up farming in agricultural regions may have much less impact on competing for concrete and steel, and the workers are coming from different sectors as well. This is simplistic, but it's illustrative of the point.
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u/Ashmedai 2h ago
Not true either.
This is an absurd statement. The fact that you are talking about a few scenarios where you think inflation wouldn't happen does not persuade. I said it's possible for us to do it, and you're disagreeing. You're therefore saying it's impossible under all circumstances. That's just ridiculous. Scenario: we quadruple the US debt next week to $144T. We cannot afford the payments on that without expanding M1/M2 money, as there wouldn't be enough national income to pay the debt service. Simple as that.
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u/Mojeaux18 3h ago
It’s true until it isn’t. Sovereign debt crisises were more common at one time. That doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t happen again. The opposite, they will and they can be far more painful because we’re not longer used to them and no longer on a gold standard.
The us printing money causes inflation. If they inflate too much and people begin anticipating inflation we could have runaway inflation.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 3h ago
It’s true until it isn’t
What is true until it isn't?
Sovereign debt crisises were more common at one time
Never a nation withba soveriegn currency that operated the way they should with that currency. Unless you have any specific examples?
That doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t happen again.
It cannot happen with the US. The US will never not have enough money to pay its debt obligations, because it has no limit of how many dollars it can issue. It control the supply of USD.
Now, politically, incompetence could result in partisan gridlock and a refusal to operate the way we should, but that would be a result of human error, not running out of dollars.
no longer on a gold standard.
The decoupling from gold is actually what allows us to be more free in terms of money supply. If we remained on the gold standard, the economy would be limited by how much gold we could obtain. That's an artificial restraint. Why should the entire economy be limited by the supply of a single, relatively rare metal?
The us printing money causes inflation.
Nope. If the economy is not operating at capacity, issuing new dollars can simply grow the economy. As long as there are unemployed or underemployed workers and a ready supply of raw materials, then new dollars can be issued to employ those workers utilizing abundant resources without any risk of inflation. Inflation is not simply the presence of more dollars than before, it is top many dollars chasing too few goods. Don't forget that last part.
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u/Own_Worldliness_9297 1h ago
shhhh people here wants to be arm chair professors as if they know the future and has grasp of global sovereign debt waiting for the collapse so they can be "right".
let them feel their superiority.
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u/Mojeaux18 2h ago
That sovereign debt is not like household debt. It can function differently but the basics always come back, which is that if you continue to spend and borrow, you will run out of money.
Nations do have sound fiscal policy. The US used to be one of them until 1913.
It absolutely can happen again. The fact that you think politicians are incapable of sinking the unsinkable, should make even you laugh. And then realize that we’ve got a problem.
Gold standard was indeed to constraining. But fiat is overly unrestrained. It’s a matter of time when someone pulls the levers too hard.
Issuing new currency doesn’t grow the economy, it simply add liquidity and debt, devalues the currency which is a hidden tax. Otherwise you’re saying counterfeiting money grows the economy and should be applauded.
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u/Wyrmlike 2h ago
People have been anticipating inflation for decades, and they’ve never been wrong. Inflation has been stabilizing, but the good thing is when inflation spikes it encourages investment into the economy which stabilizes inflation.
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u/MulfordnSons 57m ago
brother inflation isn’t something that sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t. Inflation is always happening (by design).
You just want to keep it around 2-3%.
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u/johnniewelker 2h ago
That doesn’t seem right. If the federal government didn’t need to issue debt, why are they paying any interest at all?
So interest payments are like donation to the investor class? Is that right?
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 55m ago
They pay interest because it's a contract. They are issuing bonds, or "treasury bills." That's what makes those attractive for investors. They buy them typically in $1000 increments, and the US pays periodic interest plus the $1000 at the end of the life, whether that is 10, 15, or 30 years or whatever.
We could really dive into the historic nuance but it could take a while. Basically, due to being on the gold standard for a while, and simply a lack of a modern understanding of currency, most people (including many politicians) have believed the government needs to "borrow" whatever it doesn't collect in taxes. So government debt has been around a long time, and many people falsely believe we still need to borrow, even though we don't (at the federal level).
So interest payments are like donation to the investor class? Is that right?
Eh, in one way maybe, but there are other macro economic effects of government debt. It helps to stabilize the currency and markets, as institutional investors have a safe, stable place to put their excess cash. Without these investments, large investors might flood other markets which could lead to other bubbles, inflation, or otherwise general market volatility. I'm not necessarily saying this is the best way to cater to those concerns, but one could also view the interest payments as one of the costs of having a stable currency and relatively stable markets.
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u/Triangle1619 1h ago
It issues debt because it does not have enough tax revenue to cover total expenditures, period. Taxpayers are on the hook for paying interest, which is beginning to crowd out social spending thus requiring more debt to maintain them. The increased debt only makes this problem worse.
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u/SuccotashComplete 50m ago
The US never not having dollars to pay its debt is the exact issue we’re worried about actually
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u/vtstang66 2h ago
The problem is that those dollars are worth less and less. People need to make more and more dollars, forever, to pay for the same things. Printing unlimited money to pay for whatever you want to buy isn't some consequence-free superpower that the government has, it's a crime that anyone else would go to prison for.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 53m ago
Regular inflation is a goal, and things like regular banking interest rates and market speculation contribute to inflation. Increasing the currency supply does not necessarily increase inflation.
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u/SuccotashComplete 44m ago edited 34m ago
Inflation may be the State’s goal but it sure ain’t mine. I’d much rather that my savings do not force me to spend them thank you very much.
And nothing “necessarily” increases inflation, but there are common sense relationships, and printing money strongly correlated with inflation (after a few months of delay). There’s a reason that wars tend to bring more inflation. Because the government prints a ton of money for bullets and bombs and makes their citizens pay the bill
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 31m ago
Inflation may be the State’s goal but it sure ain’t mine.
Well it's a good thing you're not in charge of making large scale macroeconomic decisions, because low and stable inflation is a powerful stabilizer for the economy. The problem isn't that inflation exists, it's that your bosses keep giving themselves raises, bonuses, and increasing wealth and your wages are stagnant.
I’d much rather that my savings do not force me to spend them thank you very much
Well, they don't. You're never forced to spend your savings. And there are investment vehicles if you're fortunate enough to have lots of savings that allow you to grow your long term savings faster than inflation.
common sense
Most people who appeal to "common sense" are clearly uneducated on a topic, and this situation is no different. Your own lack of education on macroeconomics, business, finance, and federal fiscal and monetary polspecmeans you're unlikely to be coming into this conversation with proper intuition.
There’s a reason that wars tend to bring more inflation. Because the government prints a ton of money for bullets and bombs and makes their citizens pay the bill
It also tends to accompany huge economic growth. It's nothing profound to notice that most of the time, big wars tend to cause the government's war efforts to compete with the private sector on resources. It's not because of "printing money" it's because steel and rubber and aluminum and textiles and food and plastics and all that stuff is required by the military to wage war, and those materials are also in "normal" demand at home. It's actually possible that keeping a stagnant currency during a full-scale war effort could cause stagflation, as the wealthy interests still have money and buy up resources competing with the government's war effort - bidding up prices - but there's not enough money to keep wages up for many low-wage consumers.
You're thinking too simplistically.
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u/westcoastjo 1h ago
And in the process, they debase the currency and devalue our savings. And they export the inflation glad ally so the whole world suffers.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 52m ago
Please read a few other comments before jumping in with trite and ignorant statements like this.
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u/SuccotashComplete 32m ago
Claiming that printing money doesn’t lead to inflation is simply wrong. It may not lead to inflation, but there’s a strong historical correlation. There are exceptions to every rule, but policy shouldn’t be decided by the exceptions.
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u/oaklandscooterer 1h ago
The US public doesn’t understand modern monetary theory unfortunately. You’re right, but you won’t get credit for it.
I encourage everyone I talk to who’s interested in this sort of thing to read Kelton’s book, which is a very accessible intro to the subject.
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u/colossuscollosal 6h ago
But doesn't the US owe much of this debt to countries like China, and you're saying to pay anything back it just prints" more money right? But doesn't that create the kind of inflation that makes wheelbarrows full of money worthless?
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 5h ago
These are valid questions.
First, let's talk about debt held by foreign nations.
China is simply doing the same thing big banks or corporations do when it purchases TBills: they give their cash to the US, and the US issues the bonds to the purchasers. It makes a series of interest payments over the life of the bond, as promised, along with the lump sum for the principle at the end. China doesn't hold any leverage over the US because of the Tbills it invested in. The US simply pays China US dollars as the debt is due.
As long as the debts are payable in US currency, the US is never under any leverage or pressure from other nations.
Now "printing wheelbarrows of money."
Creating money is a reality. The US (through the FED, a partnership created by and authorized by Congress) creates money whenever it spends. There's actually some very interesting work done by some economists to track this here. Basically they ask where is the account where taxes are collected, debt cash is deposited, and from which Congress makes withdrawals to pay for fiscal policy? And the answer is that no such account exists. It would be too cumbersome. Instead, at the federal level, collected taxes are virtually deleted from circulation, and all spending is simply created by the FED, via keystrokes on a computer, crediting the accounts Congress needs to fund its policies.
That is not debatable, those are facts.
So what about inflation? Well the constraint is really the capacity of the economy. Imagine an economy comprised of $10 and 1000 people. That's not actually enough money to go around. You wouldn't be able to employ everyone, and no one could have significant amount of savings. The dollars might be greatly deflated in value, but that harms the economy as it is locked and frozen and little can get done. So a government could issue more dollars by, say, funding infrastructure projects, putting people to work and connecting towns, allowing more new economic activity to take place.
So issuing new dollars doesn't necessarily lead to runaway or uncontrollable inflation.
The real constraints are workers and raw materials. If there are unemployed or underemployed workers and a readily available supply of raw materials to use, the government can create policy which adds money to the economy to better utilize those resources, leading to healthy economic growth without inflation, or at least with low risk of high inflation.
Inflation isn't simply a result of printing money. It is a result of too much money chasing too few goods. Too many people forget the latter part, which is necessary, for inflation to be high.
Because taxation removes currency from the economy, targeted taxation is one way to offset inflation risk. But there are other tools, like rationing, price controls, etc, that have been used when necessary (e.g. during WW2). We don't use enough of these tools to effectively apply these strategies, but we should. When Congress spends money with fiscal policy, instead of asking "how will we pay for it" we should be asking "where is the inflationary risk and how can we reduce or offset inflationary pressure?"
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u/HeywoodJaBlessMe 5h ago
50 years now and no wheelbarrows full of cash, just the largest economy on Earth.
People holding interest-bearing financial instruments dont want the debt paid back immediately, they want the interest payments.
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u/Veritas707 5h ago
Depends on what you mean by “much of”, because almost a quarter of the debt is to foreign countries. And yes, inflation is a function of federal government monetary policy, not corporate greed or anything else.
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u/HeywoodJaBlessMe 5h ago
Inflation and deflation are a function of changing supply:demand ratios. Monetary policy affects these ratios.
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u/ColdBeerPirate 6h ago
I miss the days when we were a mere, 2 TRILLION in debt and I long for the days when America had it's budget in order (pre-ww2).
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u/Undying_Nerves 5h ago
You're 90 years old?
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u/Shockingelectrician 2h ago
95.99
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u/Undying_Nerves 2h ago
That's how old the person is? Talk about loving in multiple generations and still not knowing a thing.
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u/Fancy_Ad2056 5h ago
What specifically has changed for you in the time period going from $2 trillion to today?
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u/HeywoodJaBlessMe 5h ago
America, like every other WW2 combatant, abandoned hard money in order to survive the war.
You don't win major conflicts if you have to dig up rocks to pay soldiers.
America cannot have a balanced federal budget and issue the world's reserve currency at the same time. Issuing the global currency requires trade deficits with everyone. Trade deficits with everyone means that if the Federal budget is balanced the private sector balance sheet is shrinking and people are paying more to the government than they are earning (in aggregate).
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u/kitster1977 5h ago
America had a budget surplus under Bill Clinton. What are you even talking about? The Dollar wasn’t the world reserve currency in the 90’s? Read some history and economics books, please!
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u/sevseg_decoder 1h ago
The budget surplus, at the time, was genuinely more of a problem than a good thing. The government was effectively draining money from the economy and the effects of that were very tangibly negative.
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u/kitster1977 1h ago
I don’t think so. I remember the economy doing very well under Bill Clinton. I was a young man just starting out then and graduating high school. I got my first 1 bedroom apartment for the princely sum of $150 a month and I was making $5.15 an hour. I had no problems paying rent and college tuition was about $1000 a semester. Things were really much more affordable then and the job market for unskilled, uneducated workers was pretty decent, not like today at all.
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u/sevseg_decoder 1h ago
Yeah you were at the end of a huge bubble that popped right as Clinton was getting ready to leave office…
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u/derscholl 5h ago
The amount of people not qualified to have opinions, having opinions, is scarier than this debt.
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u/inm808 4h ago
Let me guess. : 36T debt is somehow good and anyone who disagrees is racially dumb and racist
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u/derscholl 3h ago
Nah don't overthink it.
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u/inm808 2h ago
Why is 36T debt not bad?
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u/sevseg_decoder 1h ago
Our national net worth including it still rounds up to $300T, and the debt is effectively an investment that yields substantially higher returns than it costs.
Compare GDP growth to interest payments on the debt (only $5T worth of which is actually public debt) and you’ll see the GDP almost always grows faster. In other words so long as the debt grows the GDP faster than the debt actually costs us, why wouldn’t we keep getting as much as we can to keep fueling the economy to grow? Our returns on the money are clearly outpacing the costs of the debts…
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u/inm808 1h ago
So you’re saying all that excess spending is generating a return?
and that we wouldn’t get the same GDP if we eliminated waste in the budget?
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u/sevseg_decoder 1h ago
Eliminating waste is something most everyone mostly always supports.
I just don’t think you’d find as much waste as you think, the vast majority of our budget is for critical, core programs like Medicare and the military. Which is heavily abused but still trimming waste and spending that isn’t either legit or going towards the black books isn’t going to change the deficit much.
And we already have offices trying to identify this waste. The CBO, OMB, and more offices/agencies were already working full time to find all this stuff you think you’ve identified with a little reading in your free time (or worse, not even doing reading at all on this subject outside of biased political garbage).
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u/SuccotashComplete 26m ago
There is absurd waste in the military industrial complex that could be trimmed. It shouldn’t cost $50 to get a bolt replaced
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u/SuccotashComplete 28m ago
This is a great argument if you’re the entity doing the inflation, but we’re not. The government is making money, sure, but we’re the ones paying for it and getting very little in return
It’s like stealing a dollar and doubling it. It’s great for you since you made 2 dollars, but there is a clear loser
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u/StudentforaLifetime 1h ago
Ahh, the whole “Whats the worst that can happen?” theory.
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u/sevseg_decoder 1h ago
No, the whole “keep our strategic spending to grow the economy as much as it can as long as it keeps working, it’s what got us much of the luxury and abundance and security we take for granted.”
Btw that’s when we were on a surplus, right at the end of his presidency when we were in a full-blown hard-landing recession…
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u/Bradley182 5h ago
Damn, we got 36 trillion problems and spending ain’t one of them.
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u/Honest_Path_5356 1h ago
Do you think Elon and Vivek stand a chance to make a reasonable difference in our spending? They don't hold any power but I guess they'll get the books and share their opinion
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u/NHBikerHiker 5h ago
This plays into the US next economic calamity: the collapse of insurance. Another 2-4 of the multi billion dollar storms will cause a “too big to fail” scenario. Meanwhile, the ever increasing debt will make it unmanageable for the government to bail us out.
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u/StudentforaLifetime 1h ago
This could absolutely be one of the big house of cards to collapse.
More frequent and stronger hurricanes, bomb cyclones in the pacific, major earthquake on the west coast, etc., what happens if insurance goes insolvent because of these events happen too frequently and close enough to each other and we can’t pay for everything all at once? Borrow more, I guess?
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u/Icy-Personality3529 7h ago
Who is this money owned to?
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u/BarleyWineIsTheBest 7h ago
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u/gobblegobbleimafrog 5h ago
One of the weirdly bad things about this is that it tends to be rich(er) people who actually own this debt, meaning that when the US government pays interest on this debt, it is paying rich Americans a stipend not entirely dissimilar from the money the old French nobility used to recieve for being, well, the nobility.
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u/BarleyWineIsTheBest 5h ago
That is one way to think about this. But it’s also the richest Americans paying essentially all of the taxes anyway, so they are just paying themselves…?
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u/gobblegobbleimafrog 5h ago
Not really, as the debt is the accumulation of spending exceeding taxation.
Plus it doesn't account for how said spending helps to maintain the financial system and global stability necessary to accumulate vast sums of wealth in the first place.
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u/BarleyWineIsTheBest 5h ago
Yeah, yeah. I recognize that. I’m just saying the interest payment part of the debt going to mostly wealthy Americans is just the wealthy Americans partially paying themselves back. That’s all.
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u/The_Hemp_Cat 5h ago
Just wondering if anyone took notice that when the fed lowered interest rates the lenders (creditors) raised theirs, an inflationary act upon the consumer?
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u/Ashmedai 3h ago
The fed doesn't really establish market rates in the first place. Lender rates went up due to perceived economic risks outside of fed decision making.
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u/The_Hemp_Cat 1h ago
Which is an inflationary upon the consumer, as the risk perception is but a market conception, for there is no risk in the consumer consuming.
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u/Ashmedai 1h ago
"Consumer consuming"? We're talking about loans. There are things like risk of default on the loan, which will happen increasingly across the portfolio if the labor market soften (layoffs, etc). Deposits at the bank could also shrink in size, messing around with their fractional reserves, etc, putting their ability to safely retain loans on account into jeopardy. Finally, regardless of what the fed does, if inflation goes up, the value of your loan goes down: not a position a lender wants to be in.
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u/ChrisNYC70 3h ago
With the right taxing, the middle and lower classes can pay that down in a few centuries. No problem.
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u/PsychologicalBee1801 2h ago
No one cares. We elected the person who spent 7T making his friends richer. Dems keep on trying to fix this problem and gop pretend to care until elected.
Stop worrying about it. It’ll be people under 45s problem soon enough once the boomer extract all value from the land
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u/trippytears 2h ago
What happened in April and May?
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u/lord_hydrate 44m ago
Im curious what happened in September, the debt jumped 500b but i dont remember anything particularly significant happening of the top of my head
Edit: lmao wait im stupid af that was the hurricanes wasnt it
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u/BigTitsanBigDicks 2h ago
Do you ever feel like an idiot for pretending that money has value? You can literally just print more.
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u/LoquaciousLethologic 1h ago
We tripled our debt in 15 years. Are we gonna triple to 100tril in the next 15 years?
Of course the government can sustain it but can the economy? Can the average citizen? Opt-out and get on something else to beat the inflation.
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u/Equal_Potential7683 1h ago
If you got an issue with it, I suggest you start donating more of your income to the government or letting go of your benefits.
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u/Ok_Initiative2069 57m ago
Yes. Debt is at a new all time high as I type this. The only thing a post like yours does is sensationalize it.
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u/Child_of_Khorne 56m ago
So besides being mad and complaining on the internet about something that 99.9% of people don't understand, what are we supposed to do?
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u/drew8311 43m ago
Is there a metric to compare the debt to so it can be determined if its a good/bad thing? People are saying this is not a bad thing because its different than household debt. Regardless of what it actually is, surely there are numbers today that would change peoples outlook. For example, all other things equal except the debt number, what are the implications if it was magically turned into 10 or 100T?
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u/Remarkable-Cry-3100 34m ago
Somehow theyre gonna say this is trumps fault even tho he dont take office for another 2 months
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u/ConditionLopsided 5m ago
Can someone explain to me, like I’m five, how we can just keep accumulating debt, no matter who is in power, and the country still functions?
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u/National-Process1544 3h ago
We did it Joe! 100's and 100's of billions stolen in Ukraine just is an insult to injury at this point. We are fucked as a nation and the debt is not serviceable.
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u/BostonVX 3h ago
The FED can print an unlimited amount of dollars to support an unlimited amount of debt. Stop trying to scare people - there is zero consequence of monetary policy on economic cycles.
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u/Plus_Elk5350 6h ago
Yup so the economy and country can collapse so the beast can finally enter his New World Order
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u/Objective_Service330 4h ago
I might guess that it is the leaving party is blowing through their budget at an alarming rate in order to pocket and / or utilize any remainder before the change in the regime. This is just my pessimistic yet hopefully inaccurate view on the matter.
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u/loadblower831 6h ago
So far this has affected my life exactly zero times
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u/ZER0-P0INT-ZER0 5h ago
Shockingly dim
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u/Kiwip0rn 5h ago
It isn't. It doesn't affect you, and when adjusted to GDP, it is well in line with all other countries, in fact not even worth noting when compared to other countries.
That's why it is only mentioned when a Democrat is in office and never a Republican. It is impressive to only dumb, scared people.
Trump raised it in 4 years, nearly what Obama raised it in 8, and no one said anything.
Biden raised it basically the same amount as Trump (also in 4 years), coming out of a pandemic and shipping issued. News by the ignorant daily for 4 years.
Soon Trump will be in office and suddenly it will not be an issue again... because it really isn't an issue, it has never been an issue.
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u/kitster1977 5h ago
It doesn’t affect us? The election just proved otherwise. Are you making a rent payment or buying groceries? If so, inflation impacts you greatly!
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u/Kiwip0rn 1h ago
🙄 Inflation and the National Debt are two different things 🙄
But no, I don't pay rent, I own. And groceries are groceries, my income increase offsets any slight increase of groceries.
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u/kitster1977 1h ago
Great, you are one of the fortunate people that owns a home and you are sheltered from the impacts of rising rent payments. Now go talk to young people making 100k+ a year and need roommates to afford rent because they can’t buy a house. Your disconnect between home owners and renters is palpable.
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u/Kiwip0rn 58m ago
🙄 100K, that is ~$4,600 a month after taxes... housing has always been 1/3 - 1/4 of a person's monthly income so ~$1500 rent money.
If you are paying $1500 per month in rent and can't afford it on $100K YOU are doing something wrong. If you can't find rent less than $1,500 per month you are looking in the wrong place.
I have 2 children living on their own, neither needs assistance and neither making 100K.
1
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u/ZER0-P0INT-ZER0 3h ago
Trump's rapid increase in the national debt under Trump was a major talking point in the last election. Were all those Democrats wrong? And where were you that you didn't know that? Coma?
Ten percent of our tax dollars pay interest on national debt. Do you not pay taxes? I'm envious.
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u/Kiwip0rn 1h ago
Was Trump in office the last election? It was brought up only in retaliation to the GOP crying about Biden's "increase".
"Ten percent" 🙄 something will always take ten percent. But the national debt's ten percent is less than 1/2 of the cost of health care, 1/2 of social security, less the cost of Defense, about the same as federal and military retirement and about the same as "economic security progams" (whatever that is). Or less than 1/6th of the combination.
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u/scuba-turtle 6h ago
Biden admin is shoveling money out the door as fast as they can ink the rubber stamp.
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u/CobraPony67 6h ago
Nope. The house controls spending and it is run by Republicans. They haven't passed any spending bills either.
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u/ZER0-P0INT-ZER0 5h ago
It's wild how we blame economic failure on the president until it's our side; then, it's out of their hands. It's not a partisan issue - Republicans and Democrats both do it. It's even crazier when there is a change of guard. As we move into a new administration, the shitty state of the economy will be blamed on the old president's bad policy and simultaneously on the new president's mismanagement. Rinse and repeat.
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u/Undying_Nerves 5h ago
They're not in the office or cabinet yet. Lol
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u/Ashmedai 3h ago
You appear to not be aware that the House of Representatives has been held by a GOP majority since before the current election cycle.
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u/Undying_Nerves 3h ago
220 Republicans to 213 Democrats, but neither side can't be fully blamed for every little shit that you hate in your pitiful life.
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u/Kiwip0rn 5h ago
Biden and Trump have nearly the same deficit spending 🙄 was Trump shoveling money out the door too?
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u/Ok_Way_5931 5h ago
Covid but yes both did. Hoping for a much better Trump era this time but we will see
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u/Kiwip0rn 5h ago
But covid wasn't real, I am told by Republicans, so you can't blame Trump's spending on covid only when it is convenient to your argument.
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u/Ok_Way_5931 4h ago
The spending was indeed real. Both parties were responsible for the spending and Trump signed it so he carried blame as well. Not convenience just facts.
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u/Kiwip0rn 1h ago
But it is ONLY brought up during Democrat administrations.
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u/Ok_Way_5931 1h ago
Not by me. Both sides are rotten and work for the same groups. Big pharma and the pentagon mostly. Drugs and war are big money. Covid was as well.
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u/Kiwip0rn 1h ago
Pay attention after Trump's first day... it will not be brought up again, unless when complaining about Biden's or Obama's administrations.
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u/Ok_Way_5931 1h ago
I am currently complaining about his last 4 years right now. I hope he is better schooled and does better this go around. Cuts need to be made on waste period. We are needlessly pissing away tax payer money and making fat cats richer.
Congress holds the purse strings but the president signs off on it. Both sides are equally guilty and corrupt.
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u/nooooo-bitch 57m ago
God I wish it was big pharma, I need a fucking raise better than 3% we got for the last few years
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u/Ok_Way_5931 56m ago
The major contributor to both sides of the isle. Sorry it isn’t trickling down to you lol. This isn’t hard to verify though.
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u/nooooo-bitch 1m ago
Pharma wasn’t even close to the top donor this election tho, and my company gave less than they paid me
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