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Why is it that politicians only talk about SS running out of money but never talk about SNAP running out of money or the DEA running out of money?
But don't worry. President Bernie will solve all of these problems;
$18 Trillion is a low estimate. Independent economists concluded that the actual cost of Sanders' proposals would be closer to $2.5 Trillion/yr.
To put that into perspective, the entire current United States budget is currently $3.5 Trillion. Everything our Federal government currently funds costs $3.5 Trillion, and even now we're still $500-$600 billion in the hole each year.
How is going from a $3.5 Trillion budget to a $6 Trillion budget feasible in any reality? The price tags of Bernie's freebies is equivalent to the entire GDP of France. How can 'educated' college students be so completely clueless about very basic economics? The truth is, they don't care. They hear "free" this and "free" that and just assume the rich will pick up the tab for what they want.
Future Unfunded Liabilities? $101,000,000,000,000.00 and counting!
Interest on the national debt is at historical lows, we will either face a Japan-like situation of decades of ultra low interest rates and the corresponding effects OR a return to normal interest rates, which would spike the annual deficit back above $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year due to the increase in interest payments.
Should the national debt be a bigger story in the 2016 campaigns?
The good news is that none of the 'money' is real, so the deficit isn't real either.
Have the government default and start everything over with a gold standard.
Use of real money actually prevents meaningless wars since wars only get financed with fiat money anyway.
The U.S. has a sovereign currency and therefore never has to default on the debt.
Now, I know lots of people have tried to use scary numbers, like $19 trillion dollar (in my best "Dr. Evil" voice) but nobody has explained why this debt fetishism should dominate policy or what the benefit of reducing the debt does for the average American.
The U.S. govt. is the only entity with the ability to create U.S. dollars. They are also the only entity with the ability to create U.S. bonds. When they trade bonds for dollars, or dollars for bonds, it's not costing them anything to do so, because either way, they have created their instrument out of thin air. Yet people insist on calling sovereign bonds "debt" and running the economy as if we were $19 trillion in the hole.
We don't need to. We can always create as much money as needed to pay the interest.
As an aside, the interest payments on this $19 trillion is lower than it was when the debt was $10 trillion. That's because those double-digit bonds lent during the 1980s have matured.
We don't need to. We can always create as much money as needed to pay the interest.
Create money that costs us interest to pay previously accrued interest?
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As an aside, the interest payments on this $19 trillion is lower than it was when the debt was $10 trillion. That's because those double-digit bonds lent during the 1980s have matured.
Only because the costs of carrying debt are currently low. When that is no longer true... look out!
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