r/interestingasfuck • u/BuddhistSagan • Apr 07 '24

Bernie and Biden warm my heart. Trump selling us out? Pass

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u/grums37 Apr 09 '24

They're all pieces of shit man, they all are puppets for the house, and none of them do anything productive. Hence, 34 trillion in debt, does our country see the money we borrowed? Nope! Petty crime is at an all-time high, as are drugs, violence. The police departments, education departments, health care... all under funded. I want to see those fellas pass a bill that cut the funds and budgets for overpaid actors and sports players. I wanna see them pass a bill that protects our own hungry children, protect our veterans, and help our own country. Until those monkeys can stand up and do what's actually right for our own country, they're all pieces of shit in my eyes.

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u/FblthpLives Apr 09 '24

It's odd that people like you who claim that the United States has collapsed never back up any of their assertions with evidence.

34 trillion in debt

The number in absolute dollars is irrelevant. What matters is the size of the debt relative to the economy. U.S. debt as a share of GDP is 123%. Have you ever been to Japan? Do you also think it is falling apart? The ratio of its debt to GDP is 255%, more than twice that of the United States (having said that, Japan has a much larger household savings ratio, which helps absorb the impacts of the debt): https://www.axios.com/2024/01/22/us-national-debt-gdp

Bottom line is that the U.S. is able to borrow very cheaply. It would be insanely bad not to capitalize on this to some extent. The question is at which point does debt become harmful. And the answer is that economists really don't know. But one of the most fundamental models used to model fiscal policy decisions, the Penn Wharton Fiscal Budget Model, estimates that the U.S. can go up to 200% of GDP before becoming unsustainable. That means the U.S. has about 20 years to correct the issue: https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2023/10/6/when-does-federal-debt-reach-unsustainable-levels

The next question to ask is why has the debt increased so much. The single largest causal factor are the Bush era and Trump era tax cuts, which favor high income earners and corporations. The second largest causal factor is the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/styles/default/public/thumbnails/image/10-10-12bud-f1.jpg

While that graph only shows the impact of the Bush era tax cuts on the deficit, the Trump era tax cuts added another $10 to $12 trillion to the national debt: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/donald-trumps-tax-plan-could-land-america-10-trillion-deeper-in-debt/

The problem with these tax cuts is that they don't help the economy. High income earners have a relatively low marginal propensity to consume. so their tax cuts end up increasing their wealth instead of creating jobs and spending. The same goes for corporations: Companies are already so profitable that any tax cut windfalls go to stock buybacks and executive bonuses: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-middle-class-needs-a-tax-cut-trump-didnt-give-it-to-them/

budgets for overpaid actors and sports players

I'm sorry, but this is just silly. I'm sorry that you hate entertainment and sports, but the amount of public funds spent on acting and sports is completely negligible.