They got a (very) bad piece of news today, and it happened on their watch- their majority. No one is completely blameless, but it’s the GOP that chose it (looking at you, Joni Ernst), and it belongs to them. In a manner of speaking, we should be happy it wasn’t us, but this affects *everyone* in America, even Trump, even the gazillionaires- less so than us regular Americans, but still, all of us in America. My compliments to Raw Story:
A panel of experts on CNN blasted through the ramifications of the U.S. national debt hitting the $40 trillion mark. More than a decade ago, President Donald Trump promised he could eliminate the national debt, and instead introduced a series of tax cuts that accelerated its growth. “These are certainly eye-popping numbers for voters to see, and come as voters continue to have concerns about the Trump administration’s handling of the economy,” said CNN’s Arlette Saenz in a sidebar.
That’s a very long way up there. Extremely. It’s almost impossible to comprehend. There’s nothing that we could compare with to really understand it. Pretty sure that even Elon couldn’t pay that off, not that he would. The last time the US Budget was balanced was back in the Clinton years, but Congress did it, not Clinton himself. Nothing like having your information corrected.
The Big Ugly Bill made it worse, but we’ve been heading up for decades. BUB still makes us angry, as one would expect. There were some ridiculous budgetary increases in that thing, some of which still don’t make sense. And Social Security is running out. The things that needed money didn’t get it, and vice versa. So, what is there that could be considered frivolous and be cut? The budget is hundreds of pages long.
Medicare/Medicaid did NOT need to be cut, and the far-far-far-right maniacs need to be slapped for it. Yes, too personal. It’s not intended as a hint to go assault someone. That’s all figurative. And another too personal: the military needs everything it can get, especially as tech moves forward in leaps and bounds. (Steam catapults? OH HELL NO. Trump can bugger right off. With Natalie. Okay, done with the snark. I keep regressing.)
Everyone wants what they want, and very few are willing to compromise anymore. Congress worked across the aisle once. Why can’t it be done again? Too many egos in the way. And a Speaker who is a milquetoast. We need strong leadership. We need people who can at least talk across the aisle and see where it goes. And we need people willing to try, of whom there are few and far between these days.
$40 trillion. TRILLION. We are racing to the precipice faster every damn day. Trump won’t do anything. No one should waste their breath trying to talk to him. His ‘cabinet’ certainly won’t either. We already know. Who is left to ask? Back to the phones and call our Congress critters, as Denis would say. See if there’s a way to snail mail them. It won’t hurt. We’d need to flood the zone with everyone’s Congresspeople to really work, but taking the time to sit down and write to your people shows something, even if they’re completely oblivious to it. You never know. And my household is lucky. Jon Ossoff is one of ours.
Friends, I know everybody begs you for money. I promise you that, of all the outlets bugging you for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a bunch of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. But the rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the ability to continue our quest to tell the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
A minor correction, but neither Clinton nor Congress completely eliminated the debt. What had happened was a series of yearly budget surpluses that helped bring down the debt and there had been speculation that similar surpluses over the next decade could lead to the debt being eliminated. But then Dubya decided to issue those tax rebates just months into his presidency and then 9/11 came along and blew everything to hell. The global financial crisis of 2008 led to Obama’s inheriting the hugest debt (to that time) and, while he managed to help alleviate the debt, it continued to rise. And even most conservative economists lay a large part of the continuing increase in the debt to Drumpf’s 2017 tax programs and Biden’s 2020s COVID-related spending (even they tend to acknowledge that the government’s doing absolutely nothing would have just led to continued increases in the debt) and, most recently, Drumpf’s 2025 vomit-inducing tax program. (Interestingly enough, during the government’s roughly 2-month shutdown–when the government wasn’t doing any spending–the debt actually increased by more than a trillion dollars; it even broke the $39-trillion mark during the shutdown).
Whoa. I did not find all that information in my search, but I only looked for the Clinton bit. Thank you!!
As a math geek who considered aa career in economics in College, I would like to beg all of your forgiveness for a few paragraphs of just how REALLY bad the US economy is, so you folks REALLY understand the depth of where we are headed. First, I suggest everyone google the 3nd smartest investor in the USA (after of course Warren, and Charlie Munger, who may be dead, but he’s STILL the smartest or second smartest investor in the country!) Ray Dalio. If you don’t already know Ray Dalio, then buy all his books!!!
Next, some numbers.
USA Total debt = 40 Trill
Canada total debt = 2.44 Trillion.
USA debt per capita: $116,754
Canada debt per capita : $61,000
Debt per GDP Canada: 97.6%
USA: 123.17%
Your debt is now greater than your GDP. Ours is high, but its still under 1.0.
Also, your inflation rate is never higher than ours, and yet, today the US inflation rate is 3.4% and ours is 3.0.
In short, for no reason whatsoever, Trump launched a trade war against Canada that from essentially ALL economic metrics, we are so much better placed to withstand his nonsense than you guys are. This is sheer insanity and why someone who KNOWS better like Bessent can’t tell Trump “this is ridiculous, great leader” is a question I cannot answer.
But it is really bad for the USA.
Now, if pure stats are not depressing enough, go read Ray Dalio
And just to put numbers in perspective.
One million seconds is 11.574 days, or 0.01371 years, so if someone gave you one dollar a second, it would take that long before you had a million dollars.
So if someone gave you a trillion dollars at the rate of one dollar per second, how long would it take until you had a trillion dollars?
31,688 years.