So...with all of this talk of the national debt and cutting the federal deficit, let's discuss the national debt somewhat. A republican congressperson actually had the balls to hold a town hall and his constituents booed and jeered him for it. He was like "i cant believe you guys are booing a balanced budget" and stuff like that. With that said, let's have an honest, candid discussion about the debt.
First of all. Let's discuss what the national debt is. It's money that the US government spends that is in excess of the funding it brings in. The 2024 federal budget had a $1.8 trillion deficit, which is huge. Quite frankly it's been high every year since COVID. Isn't this a problem? Well, yes, but also, not as much as you think.
First of all, the national debt is the cumulative negative number over time. How much the government has ever spent relative to how much it had taken in. It's not gonna come to be owed all at once. it's actually owed to tons of different countries and entities, and many of these countries and entities also owe debt to others and so on. Modern capitalism is built like this for some reason. Probably because they think it maximizes growth.
Which brings us to the next point. if one follows MMT, they'll argue for using stimulus and going into debt to produce higher economic growth...because then the economy grows so much that the country outgrows the debt. IMagine borrowing $5 and making $50. Okay, so you gotta pay back $6 with interest or something, you still made $44, you know? This is why "WE GOTTA PAY BACK ALL OF THIS MONEY" makes no sense.
What really matters is debt to GDP ratios. Generally speaking it's bad if the debt is larger than the entire economy. And ours does, it's 122% of GDP. Still, despite this, we have a good credit rating and it's holding for the future.
Still, shouldn't we do something about this? Yes. We should pay it down somewhat. I'm not saying we should have high levels of national debt. But, there are two ways to pay it down, spending cuts and tax increases. And this is where things get freaky.
Every time the GOP gets into office, they claim we have this "huge problem" that "must be solved now" and can only be done by cutting spending, most typically welfare type services, like DOGE is trying to undermine and cut.
However, let's be real. Do these guys REALLY care about the debt? No. They always pair spending cuts with tax cuts for the wealthy, not really doing much to solve the national debt. Heck, I've seen images where while the GOP wants to basically cut all of medicare, they simultaneously want to give as much of that money back to billionaires in the form of tax cuts. This means that republicans do a switcheroo claiming that we need to cut this national debt, but in reality, they don't care about the debt. They're using it as a cudgel to meet their own ideological goals. Of course they'll claim that tax cuts for the rich "create jobs" which allows the wealth to "trickle down", but it genuinely doesnt happen. Money going to the bottom has a higher multiplier effect than money going to the top, so republicans are basically scamming us with their claims about the national debt.
Even worse, the debt barring massive crises like 2008 or 2020, democrats are better stewards on the national debt than republicans are. Republicans increase the national debt, often without valid reason. Reagan tripled it. Bush Sr then raised taxes to offset that, but then Clinton actually balanced the budget. Bush unbalanced it with tax cuts and unnecessary wars, then 2008 happened, and both Bush and Obama had to inject tons of stimulus into the economy to keep it functioning. However, then Obama pared that back over time, just in time for Trump to come in, and, you guessed it, more tax cuts! And then Biden inherited the recovery from COVID, republicans magically became aware of the national debt problem again, and now the republicans are trying to cut spending again while NOT paying down the debt, but passing on the savings to their billionaire buddies, claiming it "creates jobs."
Again, let's really get at what republicans are saying about the national debt. Basically, they wanna take away your safety nets, and give tax cuts to billionaires. Which is perfectly justified in their anti government views. They're only concerned with getting rid of government spending. Their long term goal is to get the government so small that they can "drown it in the bathtub." If the billionaires get all the money in such an economy, oh well. They "earned" it. And your only option to get a slice of the pie is to work for it, by doing work for them. And they shouldnt be forced to share it with other people via forced redistribution, because that's how their abolutist view of property works.
It's all ideology. So every time democrats are in power, they scream about the debt, which they actually dont care about, and then blow the savings on tax cuts for billionaires. They weaponize it against the left. They use it as a cudgel. They dont care. They're just small government extremists.
There's a reason I developed the views I did, understanding how this works. I believe in more government spending. Not in an absolutist sense, but i dont believe in just expecting everyone to work for the wealthy as the model for society. To me, that's a model based on slavery without calling it such. Rather, I advocate for redistribution and non reciprocity as a model for providing for people, and THEN using capitalism and the jobs market from there to incentivize people to do the necessary and productive work we have to. It's a different model, but I see it as an equal and opposing model to the republican model. As I see it, republicans want slavery, democrats want slavery with regulations, and i want liberation.
Either way, while we should probably be more fiscally responsible with our federal budget, i actually do advocate for either balancing it or running smaller deficits than we currently do. This mostly means not advocating for crazy tax cuts and raising taxes, especially on the wealthy, to pay for it.
I mean, and that's where the Nebraska town hall people are right. People are pissed and despite trump winning, i dont think most people are behind trump. Most people are actually more fiscally progressive these days, which is why they're yelling at their congress people (when they dare hold meetings) to tax the rich. Yeah. You tax the rich, you save social security. You tax the rich, you pay down the deficit. Even if I wasnt for UBI and my massive expansion of the federal government, i say we tax the rich. And given I AM for that, well, let's just say I believe in funding all of my proposals in a budget neutral way. I dont advocate for funding them via deficit spending.
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