timschochet
Footballguy
Yes it is totally hypocritical of the Republicans to start bringing up the size of the national debt again. They only seem to bring it up when there is a Democratic President or when there are spending proposals they don’t like. Otherwise they cut taxes and spend like crazy on stuff they like (such as the military). In addition, Republicans are good at talking the talk but not walking the walk: they constantly warn that spending needs to be cut but when in power they never actually cut spending; at the most they pass limitations on future spending, amd this ploy never works because when the time comes they just ignore the limitations (as witness this year’s budget which has all kind of “emergency” workarounds to get past previous limits that were set up.) Limitations on future spending does not work and any politician who proposes it is simply trying to kick the can down the road while avoiding doing anything unpopular.
Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to behave as if the debt doesn’t exist. It’s not even an issue for them. It could be argued that raising taxes helps to lower the deficit, but the problem is that whenever Democrats raise taxes it’s always accompanied by more spending. (In the case of Obama, he managed to get some of the Bush taxes cuts to expire but by the time he was able to do it a Republican controlled Congress prevented any more spending and like magic, the deficit went down- but that wasn’t something either side planned or should take credit for.)
And the thing is, it’s a real problem. It was 9 trillion 25 years ago. It’s 29 trillion today and our economic growth has not increased at the same rate, nor has inflation. It goes up every year because we can’t seem to shrink our annual deficit (much less have a surplus which is the only way to bring the debt down.) At some point our payments on the debt will seriously interfere with our ability to pay for current spending. Amd then what? We’re not one of Trump’s hotels; we don’t get to declare bankruptcy.
And the other thing is we have huge spending yet to do: climate change, infrastructure. Look how much COVID is costing us. There will likely be foreign and military engagements in the future.
Anyone got any new ideas?
Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to behave as if the debt doesn’t exist. It’s not even an issue for them. It could be argued that raising taxes helps to lower the deficit, but the problem is that whenever Democrats raise taxes it’s always accompanied by more spending. (In the case of Obama, he managed to get some of the Bush taxes cuts to expire but by the time he was able to do it a Republican controlled Congress prevented any more spending and like magic, the deficit went down- but that wasn’t something either side planned or should take credit for.)
And the thing is, it’s a real problem. It was 9 trillion 25 years ago. It’s 29 trillion today and our economic growth has not increased at the same rate, nor has inflation. It goes up every year because we can’t seem to shrink our annual deficit (much less have a surplus which is the only way to bring the debt down.) At some point our payments on the debt will seriously interfere with our ability to pay for current spending. Amd then what? We’re not one of Trump’s hotels; we don’t get to declare bankruptcy.
And the other thing is we have huge spending yet to do: climate change, infrastructure. Look how much COVID is costing us. There will likely be foreign and military engagements in the future.
Anyone got any new ideas?