Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so we need to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for the spending. But the wealthy are in power so that probably won’t happen. I’m a moderate and just want a sustainable country that works. It’s all so bleak.

Well you need a growing economy which requires consumers making enough money to buy products/services from the private sector. This administration's answer to the deficit is to do mass layoffs across the country, raise the price on most goods, cut taxes on billionaires, increase government spending, and abolish free trade. You don't understand the deficit because it's just a chant Republicans bring up whenever there's a Democrat in office

+1

Anonymous wrote:I can’t see how the USA can run a trillion dollar deficit forever. How does this get addressed? I don’t like that DOGE targeted certain agencies but how can we continue spending more than we have by $1.7 trillion dollars a year?

Is that sustainable? What resources can I use to educate myself on this? Cutting spending is never popular and obviously Trump will offset any savings with tax cuts but I’m not understanding why the deficit isn’t a big deal to us Americans.

1) U.S. will have $2 trillion deficit this year

2) Federal spending is up this year. Why? Because the deficit is mainly from social security, Medicare and interest rates (which are climbing because our stable genius is scaring investors away from U.S. bonds.)

3) DOGE has fired lots of people but their chainsaw approach is going to cost the government $135 bn this year alone. Lawsuits, decreased IRS collections from tax cheats, lost productivity. The conservative manhattan institute said there was only $2 billion in verifiable savings from DOGE.

4) it is not sustainable. Lots of people on both sides know it is not sustainable. But right now Rs plan to make it a lot worse with more tax cuts.

5) Rs one big beautiful bill will add $14 trillion to our national debt..

6) terrible time to be pissing off the countries who buy our debt

I’m not listening to anyone and I don’t read MAGA news. I’m just a normal Maryland mom who thinks our country’s financial situation is unsustainable. If there is evidence that I am worried for nothing, I’d love to read it. I guess I’m over 50 so I’ll probably be ok but I have kids and am sad to see our country in decline both morally, politically, and financially.

Anonymous wrote:More than one trillion dollars a year in interest payments, and this is at relatively low rates. If rates go to six percent, then over two trillion dollars a year in interest.

Just think of all the social programs we could have if we didn't have to pay that interest.

More than one trillion dollars a year in interest payments, and this is at relatively low rates. If rates go to six percent, then over two trillion dollars a year in interest.

Don't listen to Republicans/conservatives/Maga. They'll twist any issue to benefit themselves.

Anonymous wrote:OK, so we need to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for the spending. But the wealthy are in power so that probably won’t happen. I’m a moderate and just want a sustainable country that works. It’s all so bleak.

Well you need a growing economy which requires consumers making enough money to buy products/services from the private sector. This administration's answer to the deficit is to do mass layoffs across the country, raise the price on most goods, cut taxes on billionaires, increase government spending, and abolish free trade. You don't understand the deficit because it's just a chant Republicans bring up whenever there's a Democrat in office

OK, so we need to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for the spending. But the wealthy are in power so that probably won’t happen. I’m a moderate and just want a sustainable country that works. It’s all so bleak.

Anonymous wrote:I can’t see how the USA can run a trillion dollar deficit forever. How does this get addressed? I don’t like that DOGE targeted certain agencies but how can we continue spending more than we have by $1.7 trillion dollars a year?

Is that sustainable? What resources can I use to educate myself on this? Cutting spending is never popular and obviously Trump will offset any savings with tax cuts but I’m not understanding why the deficit isn’t a big deal to us Americans.

DOGE just increased the deficit by charging millions for his “services” and saved no money- at the cost of human suffering and economic stability.

I look forward to a leader who will help us address the deficit honestly and fairly. I can’t wait until this is over.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t see how the USA can run a trillion dollar deficit forever. How does this get addressed? I don’t like that DOGE targeted certain agencies but how can we continue spending more than we have by $1.7 trillion dollars a year?

Is that sustainable? What resources can I use to educate myself on this? Cutting spending is never popular and obviously Trump will offset any savings with tax cuts but I’m not understanding why the deficit isn’t a big deal to us Americans.

Stop giving a $4 trillion tax cut to the wealthy. It’s interesting you don’t even mention that.

+1

Anonymous wrote:I can’t see how the USA can run a trillion dollar deficit forever. How does this get addressed? I don’t like that DOGE targeted certain agencies but how can we continue spending more than we have by $1.7 trillion dollars a year?

Is that sustainable? What resources can I use to educate myself on this? Cutting spending is never popular and obviously Trump will offset any savings with tax cuts but I’m not understanding why the deficit isn’t a big deal to us Americans.

I'll let someone propose solutions, but the basic idea is when we exceed our budget, we take loans. When we take loans. We pay interest on the loans. The more loans we take out, the more interest we have to pay. We aren't like a business we can produce products to make money. The only source of revenue we really have are taxes. As it is now, we spend a huge amount of our taxes just on interest.

People who take out loans on your credit card to give you things aren't your friends. They are just making it more difficult to do things in the future.

You can think of loans as like a banking tithe.

Long term consequences are basically all of our taxes are going towards loans.

So here is the scenario. Camp A) likes to do social programs, but they don't raise taxes to pay for them they keep promising us the wealthy will pay for them, but in practice we keep paying more to the wealthy in interest on these loans, exacerbating social inequities. Camp B) doesn't like the social programs so they cut taxes exacerbating the budget problem so that camp A can't do more social programs, eg they don't like the programs, and they don't want to pay for them, so they don't pay for them.

First, deficits could be solved by higher, rather than lower, taxes on the very wealthy, who got that way partly due to subsidized interest rates and tax loopholes.

Second, the debt has been there and been growing for decades. The current "crisis" is Republican propaganda -- but one they seem set on making a self-fulfilling prophecy: We don't have a crisis as long as investors and other countries are willing to invest in our government bonds. They will dump the bonds and we'll have a true crisis when they deem the US unstable and unlikely or unwilling to pay off our debts.

Third, if you compare our debt to our assets, then the situation looks pretty good, even in household budget terms.

The country's assets include things like
natural resources
an educated workforce
a stable political environment
an apolitical and stable federal workforce
an apolitical military
an honest and apolitical judicial system
a thriving and sound business environment
a system of primary research that fuels industry and progress
a healthy natural environment
etc
etc

See the real problem?

Anonymous wrote:I can’t see how the USA can run a trillion dollar deficit forever. How does this get addressed? I don’t like that DOGE targeted certain agencies but how can we continue spending more than we have by $1.7 trillion dollars a year?

Is that sustainable? What resources can I use to educate myself on this? Cutting spending is never popular and obviously Trump will offset any savings with tax cuts but I’m not understanding why the deficit isn’t a big deal to us Americans.

Stop giving a $4 trillion tax cut to the wealthy. It’s interesting you don’t even mention that.

Because a federal budget is not the same as a household budget. We need to ditch this dumb analogy.

I can’t see how the USA can run a trillion dollar deficit forever. How does this get addressed? I don’t like that DOGE targeted certain agencies but how can we continue spending more than we have by $1.7 trillion dollars a year?

Is that sustainable? What resources can I use to educate myself on this? Cutting spending is never popular and obviously Trump will offset any savings with tax cuts but I’m not understanding why the deficit isn’t a big deal to us Americans.