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As tax reform is currently being discussed it looks like the debt will rise again as we will be seeing massive tax cuts. In terms of the general budget we will be seeing an increase in Defense spending, not just for the military but for the border.
On the cuts side, I will be very surprised if there are any significant cuts to balance this all out. The majority of our spending actually goes to programs like Social Security and Medicare for now. I don't see any resolution to significantly reduce spending in this area if politicians want to keep their jobs.
With all that said every election cycle, it seems that the debt becomes a nice pile of mud politicians can use to sling at each other. Yet when it comes time to do the dirty work neither politicians or the public have the heart to do it. Politicians want to keep their job and the citizens don't want to make sacrifices.
Will the debt catch up to us? Will it catch up to us in our lifetime? Or is it a case of worrying about nothing?
Unfortunately, the average citizen is severely lacking when it comes to having any math or critical thinking skills.
Interest on the debt is still somewhat manageable today. For 2016 it was about $240 billion, or a little less than $750 per capita. Of course if the debt keeps growing faster than the economy it WILL become an issue, perhaps in my lifetime.
While I'm not a proponent of big government, the social programs you mention seem necessary if we want to keep seniors from largely living on the streets and begging for food. Most people cannot or will not save anything, and so without a sea change in attitude it's hard to imagine what our country would look like without SS/Medicare. They do seem to be in need of continual reform, unfortunately, being the product of a political process and not an actuarial process. Higher taxes and thinner benefits seem inevitable, although how these are actually implemented remains to be seen.
With all that said, I personally think the Federal Government has grown much bigger than it needs to be, and bigger that it was intended to be. Defense is a necessity, but we need to stop being the world's policeman and get out of a lot of foreign countries. And today we have huge federal agencies that did not even exist when I was born, but are now deemed essential. As you describe, there is no motivation for cutting or eliminating everything. As long as there are no term limits, and effectively no limits on campaign contributions, I don't see anything changing much at all.
Unfortunately, the average citizen is severely lacking when it comes to having any math or critical thinking skills.
Interest on the debt is still somewhat manageable today. For 2016 it was about $240 billion, or a little less than $750 per capita. Of course if the debt keeps growing faster than the economy it WILL become an issue, perhaps in my lifetime.
While I'm not a proponent of big government, the social programs you mention seem necessary if we want to keep seniors from largely living on the streets and begging for food. Most people cannot or will not save anything, and so without a sea change in attitude it's hard to imagine what our country would look like without SS/Medicare. They do seem to be in need of continual reform, unfortunately, being the product of a political process and not an actuarial process. Higher taxes and thinner benefits seem inevitable, although how these are actually implemented remains to be seen.
With all that said, I personally think the Federal Government has grown much bigger than it needs to be, and bigger that it was intended to be. Defense is a necessity, but we need to stop being the world's policeman and get out of a lot of foreign countries. And today we have huge federal agencies that did not even exist when I was born, but are now deemed essential. As you describe, there is no motivation for cutting or eliminating everything. As long as there are no term limits, and effectively no limits on campaign contributions, I don't see anything changing much at all.
The average american lacks the critical thinking skills to understand the nation's problems. Even if you explain it to them their eyes will glass over in about 2 minutes as they get a tension headache over the math.
The debt at current levels is manageable. So long as it grows at the same rate as the economy. That however is not happening already and proposals will accelerate that. This is a huge problem.
The last thing you want to do is urinate in the well of our reserve currency. You start seeing commodities being priced in baskets or anything other than dollars and countries start dumping dollars for something else and we are going to know really well what is it like to be economically ****ed. So by all means, keep pushing towards a credit downgrade and waving our weiners at every world leader over every little thing. One recession will knock us well off our perch and we've ended up spending ourselves into a pit during times of prosperity so there will be little way out of it with our one dimensional service based economy. Especially if other major industries like OIL are also still hurting.
Our problems, big ones that is, can be summed up in a few facts
Wages haven't risen for the bottom 60 or 70% of people since the 70's. This needs to change now, since every $ we put in the hands of those folks gets spent for the most part. Demand drives jobs and growth not just throwing more cash flow to share holders.
We are at full employment right now. This isn't the time for a tax cut. In fact, it is the time to start rising the FICA rate slowly to solidify social security and slowly raising the earnings cap to fund the program. That way the boomers will get their money but more importantly so will the following generations.
If we want to start cutting $ I'm all for that. Start with the big things like our 16 year war in Afghanistan and stop shoveling 50b to the war pig every time if farts. There was a study done about a decade ago where well over 100b a year of waste was found in the military and the report got buried. Fairly sure the pig is leaving droppings everywhere at an accelerated pace today.
Then we can start looking at SSI disability and people there that are on the program that can work but choose not to.
We can start cutting back on some of the corporate handouts and implement ways for there to be some actual competition for things like broad band. We did it with POTS and it worked great.
Our problems aren't insurmountable. We just have to elect politicians that can say something other than "tax cut" or "Strong Military" or "BLM" or "other random SJW BS"
As tax reform is currently being discussed it looks like the debt will rise again as we will be seeing massive tax cuts. In terms of the general budget we will be seeing an increase in Defense spending, not just for the military but for the border.
On the cuts side, I will be very surprised if there are any significant cuts to balance this all out. The majority of our spending actually goes to programs like Social Security and Medicare for now. I don't see any resolution to significantly reduce spending in this area if politicians want to keep their jobs.
With all that said every election cycle, it seems that the debt becomes a nice pile of mud politicians can use to sling at each other. Yet when it comes time to do the dirty work neither politicians or the public have the heart to do it. Politicians want to keep their job and the citizens don't want to make sacrifices.
Will the debt catch up to us? Will it catch up to us in our lifetime? Or is it a case of worrying about nothing?
The typical poster is way too concerned over our national debt number because of potential inflation. They think if we don't create more money we will not see any more inflation. And I don't totally disagree, although there are many other inputs into inflation at any point in time. They would rather have smaller gov't and less debt then say HC for our people, or a national infrastructure redo, or a larger military.
Q: Does the Average Citizen Truly Care About the National Debt?
A: The average Citizen is too concerned with watching the latest episodes of Dancing With The Stars and Keeping Up With The Kardashians. The average citizen doesn't know there exists something called The National Debt. But they have memorized the lyrics to Slow Hands.
The average citizen will only care when the United States does a Greece. Looking at Japan with their nutty debt to GDP ratio, there may be several decades before that happens.
The average citizen will only care when the United States does a Greece. Looking at Japan with their nutty debt to GDP ratio, there may be several decades before that happens.
Greece can't happen, the USA is monetarily sovereign. We can certainly inflate, but not go BK.
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