So one of the fun things about politics has been that whichever party is in charge at the moment gets skewered by the other party over the debt.

The reality is, the debt is a real problem, not some political football.

Reality check.
According to the government accounting office, by 2028 the INTEREST on the debt will exceed the total defense budget.
Think about that.
At present the Federal budget sits at $6.8 TRILLION, with revenues of roughly $4 TRILLION.
And if the current administration has it's way we'll spend a few TRILLION more that we don't have, continuing what Trump and Obama and Bush did before them.



Shooter knows that the despicables will reply by pointing out how Trump/Bush/Reagan did this to us, ignoring the Obama/Biden spending free for all.
The deplorables will rant about Biden's spending, and reparations, and student loan debt.

All of that begs the question; what the fuck are we going to do about this?
​

Federal debt explodes by $1 trillion in five weeks since deal suspending limit became law (msn.com)
The U.S. national debt has increased by $1 trillion in the five weeks since President Biden signed a bill into law that effectively turns off the debt ceiling until 2025.

According to Treasury Department data, the total national debt stood at $32.47 trillion on July 6, $1 trillion more than the $31.47 trillion level last seen on June 2. The national debt had been stuck at or near that June 2 level for months because the government had hit the debt ceiling and was legally prohibited from borrowing any more money.

On June 3, however, Biden signed legislation reflecting negotiations with House Republicans that requires a small spending cut next year and allows unlimited federal borrowing until 2025. With no debt ceiling in effect, federal borrowing jumped more than $350 billion in a single day and crossed the $32 trillion mark in less than two weeks.

That quick increase reflected pent-up demand for borrowing that the government delayed while the debt ceiling deal was being negotiated.

NATIONAL DEBT HITS $32 TRILLINO TWO WEEKS AFTER DEBT CEILING DEAL

The national debt has increased $4.7 trillion since Biden took office in January 2021, and is expected to keep rising in the face of annual budget shortfalls of at least $1 trillion per year. So far in fiscal year 2023, the government has spent $1.16 trillion more than it has collected and the Biden administration is predicting a $1.5 trillion budget deficit when the fiscal year ends in September.

Biden has continued to boast that he has shrunk the budget deficit.

"And by the way, parenthetically, I want you to hear about the deficit. I cut the deficit $1.7 trillion in two years," he said last week. "Nobody's ever done that – cut the debt $1.7 [trillion]."

But many mainstream news outlets have discounted that bragging point because the lower deficit mostly reflects the end of emergency spending related to COVID-19 and increased tax revenue that reflects the post-COVID economic recovery. When COVID hit in 2020, federal spending exploded by $2 trillion – the government spent a total of $6.5 trillion that year instead of the $4.4 trillion it spent a year earlier, and the budget deficit exceeded $3 trillion.

BIDEN REPEATS ‘MISLEADING’ CLAIM HE CUT AMERICA'S BUDGET DEFICIT BY $1.7 TRILLION: ‘BOTTOMLESS PINOCCHIOS’

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen delayed certain federal spending while the debt deal was being negotiated, and borrowing surged as soon as the ceiling was suspended. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) Getty Images© Getty Images
Even though the COVID emergency has ended, federal spending has remained high. It is estimated to spent $6.3 trillion in the current fiscal year, still well above the $4.4 trillion it spent in 2019, before COVID hit.

Instead of falling back to 2019 levels, federal spending is not expected to dip below $6 trillion again. Treasury Department projections expect that the government will spend more than $7 trillion by 2025 and will exceed $8 trillion in spending by 2028, accompanied by more borrowing that is fast approaching $2 trillion per year.

As the debt ceiling deal was being negotiated between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., several conservatives argued that the GOP should be pushing for much steeper cuts to federal spending.

CORI BUSH'S $14 TRILLION REPARATIONS PROPOSAL WOULD EQUAL NEARLY 7 AFGHANISTAN WARS IN SPENDING

While Biden has boasted about reducing the budget deficit, most see that drop as a reflection of lower COVID spending and higher tax revenues, and deficits are expected to keep rising toward $2 trillion per year. AP

Russ Vought, former President Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, criticized Republicans for moving away from a House-passed plan that would have capped the growth in federal spending to a maximum of 1% per year over the next decade.

"They have never been in a stronger place," Vought said in May. "They have passed a bill that this town and the country did not think was possible, they kept their team together, they have 75-25 polling to their backs, they had the Democrats in a situation where they had said you did not negotiate for months, and yet up against a deadline that’s not a real deadline… they just completely caved."

 

If only you raised this question during Trump's term in office. It would lend a little bit more credibility to you actually being truly concerned about this now. You only do it now because it's not a Republican in office...

 

Gosh Pinky!
Thanks for that powerful insight, so well thought out and detailed for us!
Um. Where's your outrage? Wrong guy in the oval office for you to spew about?

 

Federal debt explodes by $1 trillion in five weeks since deal suspending limit became law
Story by Peter Kasperowicz • Yesterday 12:38 PM

The U.S. national debt has increased by $1 trillion in the five weeks since President Biden signed a bill into law that effectively turns off the debt ceiling until 2025.

According to Treasury Department data, the total national debt stood at $32.47 trillion on July 6, $1 trillion more than the $31.47 trillion level last seen on June 2. The national debt had been stuck at or near that June 2 level for months because the government had hit the debt ceiling and was legally prohibited from borrowing any more money.

The national debt has increased $4.7 trillion since Biden took office in January 2021

 

This is actually one of the oldest lies of the lies of conservatism. What did they expect when Trump and treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans made massive tax cuts for corporations and the 1%,, wracked up a trillion dollar budget deficit in a time of property and before anyone ever heard of COVID, and refuse to raise taxes now.

But as soon as a Democrat gets elected all of a sudden its just terrible and its all his fault.

Its one of the phoniest, lying, and oldest treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republican scams there is.

When actually its President Biden and the Democrats actually trying to deal with the deficit and debt.


FACT SHEET: The President’s Budget Cuts the Deficit by Nearly $3 Trillion Over 10 Years

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President Biden believes that investing in America, growing the economy from the bottom up and middle out, lowering costs for families, and reforming our tax code to reward work and not wealth are economic and fiscal imperatives. Strong and shared growth that benefits all Americans isn’t just good for the economy; it will also lead to better fiscal outcomes. At the same time, President Biden believes that long-term investments in our Nation and its people should be paid for. And his Budgets have consistently paid for all of his investments and improved the Nation’s fiscal outlook.

The President took office after his predecessor signed into law a reckless and unpaid for tax cut that was skewed to the wealthy and large corporations, adding nearly $2 trillion to the deficit. He also inherited a poorly managed pandemic response. The President has taken a different, responsible approach. He enacted a bold agenda to rescue the economy and get the American people vaccinated. Because of the strength of the recovery and responsible winding down of emergency programs, the deficit fell by $1.7 trillion in the first two years of the Biden-Harris Administration compared to the year before the President took office. And the Inflation Reduction Act that the President signed into law last year will reduce the deficit by more than $200 billion over the next decade, relative to deficit projections without that law.

Building on that record of fiscal responsibility, the President’s Budget improves the fiscal outlook by reducing the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade. The Budget achieves this deficit reduction while lowering costs for families, investing in our economy and our future, and protecting the most vulnerable Americans because it proposes tax reforms to ensure the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share and tackles wasteful special interest giveaways.

Improving the Nation’s Fiscal Outlook

The President’s Budget improves the Nation’s fiscal outlook and reduces long-term fiscal risks by reducing the deficit, stabilizing deficits as a share of the economy, and keeping the economic burden of debt within historical norms. Specifically, the Budget reduces the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade, compared to deficits without the President’s policies. The deficit reduction in the Budget increases over time, with $500 billion of deficit reduction in 2033.

The Budget also reduces the deficit, as a share of the economy, from current levels. Under the Budget policies, the deficit would decline over the next several years, stabilizing at around five percent of the economy throughout the remainder of the 10-year window. This compares to deficits increasing to around 6 percent without the President’s policies.

Finally, under the President’s Budget, the economic burden of debt would remain in line with historical norms over the next decade. Real net interest as a share of the economy directly measures the cost of servicing the debt: resources that must go towards paying off old debt rather than investing in the future or providing services to Americans now. The Budget forecast takes into account recent increases in interest rates and projected future increases in line with private-sector forecasters. Nonetheless, the Budget keeps real net interest payments as a share of the economy at or below the average for the last several decades, around 1 percent of GDP, and well below the 2 percent level of the 1990s.

Reducing the Deficit by Making the Tax System Fairer and Ending Special Interest Giveaways

The President believes that the best way to reduce the deficit is to reform our tax code to reward work and not wealth, ensure that the largest corporations pay their fair share, and end giveaways to special interests. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act he signed into law cracked down on wealthy tax cheats and took critical steps forward in ensuring that large corporations pay their fair share, including a 15% corporate minimum tax and a surcharge on large, publicly-traded corporations that buy back their own stock. The Inflation Reduction Act will save taxpayers more than $150 billion through reforms that cut what Medicare pays to Big Pharma.

The Budget builds on this progress and reflects the President’s ironclad belief that we need to reward work, not wealth—and ensure the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations don’t pay lower tax rates than teachers or firefighters.

To date, Republicans in Congress have put forward a much different approach, calling for more than $3 trillion in tax giveaways to the rich and large corporations and handouts to special interests. While they haven’t said how they would pay for those giveaways and also reduce the deficit, their past proposals have cut Social Security and Medicare, repealed the Affordable Care Act, slashed Medicaid, and made deep cuts to other programs that drive economic growth and that seniors, people with disabilities, and families count on.

Instead of making reckless cuts to programs that millions of Americans count on, the President’s Budget takes the following steps to reduce the deficit.

Making the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share

• Proposing a Minimum Tax on Billionaires. The tax code currently offers special treatment for the types of income that wealthy people enjoy. Whereas the wages and salaries that everyday Americans earn are taxed as ordinary income, billionaires make their money in ways that are taxed at lower rates, and sometimes not taxed at all. This special treatment, combined with sophisticated tax planning and giant loopholes, allows many of the wealthiest Americans to pay an average tax rate of just 8 percent on their full incomes, less than many middle-class households pay. To finally address this glaring problem, the Budget includes a 25 percent minimum tax on the wealthiest 0.01 percent.

• Raising Taxes on the Wealthiest Americans to Improve Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund Solvency by At Least 25 Years. The Budget includes key reforms to the tax code to ensure high-income individuals pay their fair share into the Medicare HI trust fund. Specifically, it closes the loophole that allows some wealthy investors with passthrough businesses to avoid paying the tax on their investments that everyone else pays, and it directs that tax into the HI trust fund as was originally intended. It also raises the tax rate that households earning more than $400,000 per year pay into the Medicare trust fund – by just 1.2 percentage points. These reforms will extend the life of the trust fund without cutting any benefits, or raising costs for beneficiaries.

• Repealing the Trump Tax Cuts for the Wealthy and Reforms Capital Gains Tax to Ensure the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share. The 2017 tax law lowered tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, delivering an average tax cut of more than $50,000 for the top 1% and more than $190,000 for the top 0.1%. The Budget repeals those cuts, restoring the top tax rate of 39.6 percent for those making more than $400,000 a year. It also proposes taxing capital gains at the same rate as wage income for those with more than $1 million in income, closing the capital gains loophole that allows the wealthy to avoid ever paying tax on their appreciated investments, and finally closing the carried interest loophole that allows some wealthy investment fund managers to pay tax at lower rates than their secretaries.

Making Large Corporations Pay Their Fair Share

• Reversing the Trump Tax Giveaway to Large Corporations. The Budget includes an increase to the rate that corporations pay in taxes on their profits. Corporations received an enormous tax break in 2017, cutting effective tax rates for corporations to an average of 7.8 percent in 2018, compared to 16 percent in 2016. While their profits have soared, their investment in the economy did not. Their shareholders and top executives reaped the benefits, without the promised trickle down to workers, consumers, or communities. The Budget would set the corporate tax rate at 28 percent, still well below the 35 percent rate that prevailed prior to the 2017 tax law. This tax rate change is complemented by other proposals to incentivize job creation and investment in the United States and ensure large corporations pay their fair share.

• Stopping the Race to the Bottom in International Corporate Tax and Ending Tax Breaks for Offshoring. For decades, countries have competed for multinational business by slashing tax rates, at the expense of having adequate revenues to finance core services. Thanks in part to the Administration’s leadership, more than 130 nations signed on to a global tax framework to finally address this race to the bottom. Building on that framework, the Budget proposes to reform the international tax system to reduce the incentives to book profits in low-tax jurisdictions, stop corporate inversions to tax havens, and raise the tax rate on U.S. multinationals’ foreign earnings from 10.5% to 21%. These reforms will ensure that profitable multinational corporations pay their fair share.

Ending Wasteful Spending to Special Interests

• Expand Medicare’s Ability to Negotiate Drug Prices. The IRA finally gave Medicare the power to negotiate with drug companies on the high prices they charge for prescription drugs, and the Budget builds on that progress. The Budget cuts Federal spending by $160 billion: increasing the number of drugs Medicare can select for negotiation and bringing more drugs into the negotiation process sooner. (All estimates are for savings over 10 years.) These reforms will not only cut costs for the Federal government; they will also save billions of dollars for seniors.

• Expand the IRA’s Requirement that Drug Companies Pay Rebates When They Increase Prices Faster than Inflation. Thanks to the IRA, drug manufacturers must now pay rebates to Medicare if their price increases for certain drugs exceed inflation. The Budget builds on the IRA by requiring rebates for commercial drug sales, as well as sales to Medicare. That will save the Federal Government $40 billion, further curb prescription drug price inflation, and reduce health insurance premiums for people with private health insurance coverage.

• Eliminating Tax Subsidies for Oil and Gas. The President is committed to ending tens of billions of dollars of Federal subsidies for oil and gas companies, leveling the playing field for clean energy. Oil companies had record profits in 2022 and undertook record stock buybacks that benefited executives and wealthy shareholders, all while continuing to benefit from tax subsidies worth billions of dollars. The Budget eliminates special treatment for oil and gas company investments, as well as other tax preferences.

• Lower Medicaid Spending by Addressing Excessive Payments to Medicaid Managed Care Organizations. The Budget will lower Medicaid costs by over $20 billion by requiring that insurance companies that are charging Medicaid far more than they actually spend on patient care pay back some of the excess. Currently, only about half of states require private insurance companies that provide Medicaid coverage to pay money back when they realize outsize profits. Without this requirement, insurance companies are keeping millions of dollars each year in excessive payments. The Budget would apply this requirement nationwide, consistent with similar requirements in Medicare Advantage and Affordable Care Act plans. With it, insurance companies will no longer be able to charge for unnecessary administrative expenses or sacrifice quality care to increase their profit margins, and if they charge too much, they will have to pay it back to the Medicaid program rather than keeping the profits and, in some cases, making larger payments to shareholders.

• Eliminate Tax Subsidies for Real Estate. The Budget saves $19 billion by closing the “like-kind exchange” loophole, a special tax subsidy for real estate. This loophole lets real estate investors put off paying tax on profits from real estate deals indefinitely as long as they keep investing in real estate. This amounts to an indefinite interest free loan from the government. Real estate is the only asset that gets this sweetheart deal.

• Eliminate Tax Subsidies for Cryptocurrency Transactions. The Budget saves $24 billion by eliminating a special tax subsidy for crypto currency and certain other transactions. Right now, crypto investors aren’t subject to the same rules of the road that investors in stocks or other securities have to follow, allowing them to report excessive losses. For example, a crypto investor – unlike an investor in stocks or bonds – can sell a cryptocurrency at a loss, take a substantial tax loss to reduce their tax burden, and then buy back that same cryptocurrency the very next day. The Budget eliminates this tax subsidy for crypto currencies by modernizing the tax code’s anti-abuse rules to apply to crypto assets just like they apply to stocks and other securities.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/brie...it-by-nearly-3-trillion-over-10-years-strong/

 

Trump promised to eliminate national debt in eight years, his first three years in office the federal debt went up $2.1 trillion in just 4 years.

 

And Biden's administration added $4.7 TRILLION in less than 3 years.

 

Kay. Everyone has had a chance to point fingers and play the whataboutism card and make excuses.
Now, the question.

What to do about it?

 

The usual thing to do is wait for another conservative administration to be elected and suddenly the debt is no longer anything to be concerned about.

 

Kay. Everyone has had a chance to point fingers and play the whataboutism card and make excuses.
Now, the question.

What to do about it?

 

Well that's a lie.
And you know it's a lie.
So it's a fucking lie.
​

 

The solution to the debt crisis is economically easy but politically difficult. First, agree to cut spending, and raise taxes to an equal amount. Each action will reduce the deficit equally, although they have different impacts on economic growth and job creation.

Tax cuts aren't great at creating jobs, as we have seen every time we've done it.

 

First to combat COVID 19, then to rebuild the economy, and to do what no other president since Eisenhower has done even though the all said they would, address and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Trump was running a trillion dollar budget deficit in a time of prosperity and every time a new scandal engulfed him sudden it was "infrastructure week." It was a running joke because it never happened. Trump and treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans threw trillions of dollars at rich corporations and the 1% and the American people got nothing out of it.

But with President Biden the American people are getting bang for their bucks with things that actually help them instead of the 1% that have treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans bought and paid for. Which is why the same treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans that raged against and voted against the infrastructure package are now running around all over the country bragging about trying to take credit for the infrastructure projects taking place in their states.

Do the fiscally responsible thing to do. Raise taxes on the 1% instead of cutting the programs the American people actually need and benefit from.

Why should just average working Americans pay a higher presentage of their income in taxes than millionaires and billionaires? Why don't they have to pay their fair share and especially for things like Social Security and Medicare?

If you age just going to keep repeating yourself so will I. Do the fiscally responsible thing to do and raise taxes to pay for the debts we have wracked up. Including my taxes. Let's actually do something about the deficit sand debt instead of just screaming about it because a Democrat is president.

Your obsessive/compulsion to personally attack is getting worse by the day. I guess you won't ever get banned but you can get suspended about every other week for attacks just like this.

But thanks for reminding me I need to get over to the lie of conservatism thread to expose the scam you have going on here. Most of your "objections" only appeared after you were called out for your glaring hypocrisy so you started paying lip service to the deficit and debt. And then there is no possible comparison between the milk toast things you said about it when Trump was president and the way you raged about it nearly on daily basis when Obama was president and now that Biden is president.

 

LOL! You couldn't come up with any solution when Trump was giving tax cuts to the wealthy...

https://www.americanprogress.org/ar...ly-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/

 

My point was that Trump promised to eliminate the national dent. So that campaign promise was a total fail.

 

The pesky national debt problem just will not go away.
Starting with the Obama administration the national debt was growing at about $1TRILLION a year.
Now its growing at almost $4TRILLION a year.

If the next administration/congress doesn't get its poop thightly grouped we will be well and truly FUCKED.

One of the things Shooter likes about Haley is her promise to veto any budget that does not bring spending in line with revenue, and she thinks if congress can't pass such a budget in a timely fashion they should not be paid until they do pass a responsible budget.

Her chances of winning are about nil, but she's the only candidate with a plan.

https://usafacts.org/articles/what-...ojPMTM2LQ7bJ3WmkqH8D-J6_TkDIxUOcT3xWKs.SH8aQb

 

Every candidate has a plan and part of Haley's plan is for people like you to tell everybody she's the only one with a plan, as if nobody ever thought about having a plan.

Haley's plan is the same plan every Republican candidate has trotted out with it's hair braided like a special edition My Little Pony. She says she will cut taxes and spending. What a novel idea.

What she will do, if elected is what every Republican President does. She will pass a tax cut bill that gives most of the cuts to rich people and then not cut spending. Economic growth will slow and the deficit will rise.

As for the part about "they should not be paid until they do pass a responsible budget," that's something she can't do and is never going to happen in our universe, but sounds really good to people who don't put a lot of thought into their politics.

 

He also claims that he will get tough on criminals. Nevertheless, he has four indictments and 91 felony accusations.