Approaching 19,000,000,000,000 debt. solutions?

The US is approaching 19 trillion dollar debt. What are your ideas on how to cut the deficit?

 

I don't think the deficit can be trimmed. I don't think whoever becomes the next President would be able to decrease it.

 

I have a newsflash for you...we had a debt (as a per cent of GDP) coming out of WWI that was equally high.

We don't PAY that debt. We pay the interest on it and inflation over time reduces it to a manageable sum.

We still carry that debt from WWII...but because of inflation...it hardly matters. Kinda like the end of a 30 year mortgage except there you DO pay the principal

 

... any idea how to get it to go back down?

 

The Horse ran out of the Barn back in 2000 when in 10 years, the $5 Trillion dollar National Debt at that time could have been paid off with the CBO projected $5.3 Trillion surplus President Bill Clinton handed off to GW Bush who turned it into $10.5 trillion National Debt and handed Obama a $1.4 Trillion budget deficit. If it would take 10 years to pay off $5 Trillion dollars of National Debt, how on Earth is America going to pay off $19 Trillion. It will take at least a 100 years before we can even make a Dent in it and the Draconian cuts that would be required to do it would throw America into Khaos. Sorry! but $19 Trillion is a number SO! huge, Dumb people can't even comprehend it and you'll be Dead long before you see it go down

 

the deficit is below $400 billion.

interest is 6% of annual budget.

we are doing just fine.

 

Just fine?

Take an Econ class and learn which is more dangerous.....debt or deficit.

 

you are joking, right?

 

Your Mickey the Dunce routine is unbecoming of you.

At some point, investors in the US could begin to question our government’s ability to make good on its obligations, which will make it more expensive to finance the existing debt. This will require higher taxes or spending cuts or both, which WILL hinder growth.

Econ 101. Unless you enjoy that old children's game of kick the can.

 

The Republicans plan is to further cut taxes for the very rich. It's worked great ever since Reagan started doing it, why change now? Lowering taxes for the fat cats has already decreased the national debt considerably, even after more than a decade of Republican wars-of-choice in the Middle East. Reducing the taxes collected from the super-rich to near nothing could have the U.S. in the black in just a few months. Especially if they again use those tax cuts to send more jobs out of the U.S.

Go GOP!

.

 

What is the difference between having no plans to repay the money borrowed and default?

And in times of deflation, or when the Fed finds it is unable to generate inflation, what then?

Really?

It looks to me like the rate of debt increase is heavily outpacing the inflation rate:

And look at what this debt explosion is doing to US Real Median Household Income:

 

I like the 20 trillion dollar coin idea. Use that to pay it all off, and then start over again.

The currency will be wildly inflated, thus devalued, but you can use that to get rid of coins. A dollar for a piece of what used to be called penny candy, and all is right with the world again.

The downside is that any savings you have will be wiped out, and nobody will ever really trust the US government as a place to safely park their money. But seriously, you have no choice. You'll have to do it eventually.

 

The debt will literally never be paid back. That's how countries work (government budgets shouldn't be confused with household budgets). The debt will continue to increase until at some point there will be default (hopefully in the distant future). Thinking that voting the GOP into the White House will fix it is ignoring history. Nobody will fix it until it fixes itself.

 

It's not so terrible as it could sound: the US GDP is around 18 trillion dollar, so that the debt is just a bit more than the 100% of the GDP. It's not a good situation, but not impossible to manage. Japan is at 230%, Italy at 132%. With US there are Spain and France above 90% and UK is just below 90%.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-debt-to-gdp

 

What history are you referring to? There's nothing normal about debts like this, historically speaking. It's there due to keynsian thinking, and that's relatively new. For most of history, states only had debts because of temporary exertions such as wars, which they later paid off in peace time.

 

It's not as dire as the far right pretends.

Again...we had a debt that was 100% of GDP after WWII and went on to have the greatest economy in the world in the 50s,60s and more...


In fact we never paid that debt off. We still carry it but inflation has made it insignificant.

As far as deflation...please point to a period that we had massive deflation of the sort you're referring to and if you find that, tell us what caused it and what happened after.

 

I plan on electing President Trump, as a solution.

 

Are you suggesting the economy boomed because of the debt? If not, why even bring it up?

I've never mentioned deflation.

 

The deficit has dropped every year of Barack Obama's Presidency. We have not run a surplus since Clinton was in office. George W Bush put a stop to that.

 

I realize that most conservatives don't understand (or seem to care) how a guy like Trump operates.

He LOVES debt. He lives off of it.

Other people's money has been drilled into his head since he was a small child.

He has no plan to manage long term debt, and he isn't talking about it.

He's busy ginning up the xenophobes and the bigots, right now. Telling a willing audience what it wants to hear.

Donald Trump never worried about debt, because he alway knows he can walk away from it if he has to. He's done it several times.

 

No, Osama Bin Ladin put a stop to that, after Clinton's recession generated by the dot-com bust.

Steve

 

.... You don't think the deficit can be trimmed ...?

83 years later and we've already forgot what a "leader" can do for their country.

 

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions here about the debt.

Deficit or surplus is the NET amount of annual income tax revenue minus the annual spending.

Debt is the amount of money owed by the federal government such as Treasury bonds, notes, and bills, often found in your retirement accounts. The deficit adds to this amount.

There is also unfunded debt. That is money that is expected to be owed in the future usually in transfer payments such as social security, medicare, et. al.

Steve

 

Some solution. A man without a plan or a clue.

The guy bankrupted CASINOS for God's sake

 

OTHER misconceptions here . . .

As stated above, deficit or surplus is the NET amount of annual income tax revenue minus the annual spending. That means that a deficit can be reduced by increasing taxes, reducing spending, or both.

But another way often neglected is that the economy is dynamic. When the economy is more vibrant and increasing the GDP, then taxes are automatically increased just in putting tax payers into higher brackets as well as simply collecting more revenues (higher employment etc). In fact, if taxes are not reduced every so often, then the federal government collects taxes to the point of inhibiting economic growth.

In other words, one of the BEST ways to reduce the deficit and debt is to create an environment that encourages economic growth.

Steve