altho the incompetent Trump has not been able to build the southern border wall, sea to sea, and have Mexico to pay for it. the self-proclaimed "King of Debt" has build up the size of our national debt BIGLY, by ~ $1 Trillion, every year he has been POTUS. U.S. National Debt Hits Record $22 Trillion, https://www.npr.org/2019/02/13/6941...trillion-a-new-record-thats-predicted-to-fall . The U.S. government's public debt is now more than $22 trillion — the highest it has ever been. The Treasury Department data comes as tax revenue has fallen and federal spending continues to rise. The new debt level reflects a rise of more than $2 trillion from the day the self-proclaimed "King of Debt"took office in 2017.
Highly disappointing nobody in Washington (GOP or Dems) seem to have much interest in balancing the budget and working down the national debt. #sad. Thank you for your legacy of debt Boomers.
I say they should engineer a shutdown and hold their breaths until it's all purple and blue. Dat's gud guvrnin' boy!
Spending will have to be cut; and should be drastically before any taxes are raised. Of course our democratic system does not like this.
I would disagree, because if taxes are raised, and more revenue brought in (or projected to be brought in), then the government will just expand social programs. (They can't help themselves; it's like crack to members of Congress especially.) That can't happen if the debt is ever to be addressed/lowered. And of course, this is leaving aside the economic disincentives that higher taxes will bring.
Spending will assuredly have to be cut but nobody on either side of the isle is serious about doing it. I hear rhetoric from both sides calling for increased levels of spending on various things. Since this is the singular most important political issue to me, and neither party is serious about addressing it, it's hard to back either party.
Well, for sure. That's why more people are looking to alternatives like the Libertarian party; or independents like Schultz. The main two parties won't do anything about it. The Dems are worse than the GOP on this, but they're both pretty bad on this issue.
The last two major tax hikes - Obama and Clinton - did not come with any significant additional spending and dramatically reduced the deficit. Oh, and they also had no notable effect in slowing down the economy - in fact, a few years after each, the economy went into large & long expansions.
Considering that it would take about 80 years to pay off the national debt with Elizabeth Warren's "extremist" wealth tax without any other increases in spending.... YES, the debt is a major issue. Oh, and that 80 years doesn't include the interest!!
Why do you think the national debt has to be paid off entirely? The main thing to manage is the Debt-to-GDP ratio.
The point is that even with what have been labeled as extreme tax plans it will take decades to get our debt down to a reasonable level. That's why the idea of more spending and more social programs is insane. We do need to raise taxes but we need spending cuts as well. Selling the idea of tax raises without some additional social program will be difficult. People claim they want socialist programs like in Europe. In the UK the tax bracket for income over 45,000 Euros ($50,000) is 40% PLUS you pay an additional 12% more for the national insurance on any income over 162 Euros ($183) a week. Good luck selling that to the American people when the current tax bracket for 50k is 22%. Taxing the rich is a nice idea, but if you want universal healthcare, etc EVERYONE is going to have major tax increases.
Then why and how are we 22 trillion in debt? Spending has to have increased. Plus, if you really study SS and Medicare (objectively), one begins to see how much waste, corruption/theft and inefficiency goes on with those programs. Spending and outlays has to have increased. SS is paying states to collect child support revenue. Did you know that? There's a lot of spending going on that we don't usually hear about.
Republicans don't care so long as their guy is in charge. It could be $100 trillion and that's fine by them
