Oh boy. The Freedom Caucus, in a blinding flash of political opportunism and hypocrisy, is threatening to shut down the government over the nation's overspending. Note that this new found fiscal concern somehow didn't surface during any Republican administration. But...$32 Trillion (with a "T")...my gawd...that's 100% of our current GDP. This monster hasn't grown so much in the last ten years as exploded. With interest rates rising and doubts about the willingness of Congress to continue to borrow and pay, debt service will get more, much more, expensive. I don't like grandstanding but really, don't we have to do something SOON?
It's 121.5% of GDP, which is $246,867 in debt per taxpayer, and that's before one considers unfunded liabilities from entitlement programs: https://www.usdebtclock.org/ And yes, increased spending and tax cuts thanks to the Trump administration and GOP-controlled Congress only exacerbated the problem. No idea what the way is to put the debt toothpaste back in the tube. Especially within the set of things that are politically feasible.
My cynical guess is that the actual House Republican plan is to tank the economy, if at all possible. The voters will then blame the Democrats for the bad economy because there is a Democratic President. They then hope to sweep the 2024 election. They just have to tank the economy while avoiding public blame. Biden is apparently going on a public relation blitz to try to make it clear that the blame would be at the feet of Republicans. I blame this ridiculous situation on our current news environment. The Republican base only watches Fox News at best. The 2020 election Big Lie proves that these kind of public Big Lies can work in this environment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
But Republican members of Congress are still 1%ers with their own personal wealth at stake, so it's not in their interest to tank the economy. If they do, it's much more likely to be from ignorance and negligence than on purpose.
They are probably looking into personal financial moves that would increase their wealth -- perhaps by purchasing distressed assets in a tanked economy, and waiting... Vultures.
Sometimes I think that this thing got ideological for many on the right, even setting aside racist and fascist tendencies. As in, it's not so much about caring about the interest of 1%ers as it is about hurting the poor. Out of full blown, irrational hate. And/or to keep people at the bottom easier to control.
I'm sure they all have offshore assets. And if the economy tanks, it's not like the wealthy will hurt, unless things happen French Revolution-style. And they probably think they can turn (at least some of) the hungry mob against the Dems. Which is quite possible, at the rate things are going. Distract everyone while they flee the country or whatever.
Quantitative easing will be a lot of it. This will weaken the dollar, which in turn will make domestic products more attractive as imports become more expensive. That's not the whole story, but one aspect of it that differs from what people experience regarding their own household debt. (Funny how homeowners can have debt adding up to several times their annual wage and no one blinks.)
Yes something needs to be done soon. Options for us DegreeInfo members are rather limited. For example, one of us volunteering to break into Nancy Pelosi's home to break her kneecaps surely can't work. Everyone here is intelligent enough to understand that, I think. The first step is raising (or even better eliminating) the debt ceiling. That is a job that congress has to do. The second step would be to pass new laws to do things like reduce social security or revamp healthcare to be more like every other healthcare system in first world countries. They have half the healthcare costs and better results than the USA. Those are things that our elected representatives would have to do. Obviously nothing like that is going to get passed with the current situation in Washington.
I thought hard about Dr. Douglas' parenthetical comment. I think the difference between a family's long term debt and the national debt has to do with the currency itself. Usual disclaimer here; I'm not an economist. But the much derided Modern Monetary Theory says that a government can issue as much fiat currency as it likes so long as the money supply increase doesn't trigger inflation. A family can't cause inflation.
MMT also says that the quickest way to stop inflation is with substantial tax increases. Just sayin'..
To a lesser extent, we've just tried this: pandemic spending followed by utterly predictable price increases.
Yeah. The GOP says inflation is because of reckless spending and borrowing by the Biden Administration (somehow the Trump Administration spending doesn't count?) while the Democrats say it's high energy and food prices due to the Ukraine War. Who is right? I don’t know.
And yet the federal budget deficit is lower under this Democratic president and Congress than under the previous Republican version of each. Go figure.
About $1.4 trillion less this year I think I heard but the deficit still exceeds a trillion for 2023. That's difficult for me even to conceive.
Well conceiving a millionaire is probably pretty easy. Now conceive of a million millionaires and you got a trillion.
