WHEN are we going to stop continually raising the debt limit?

[Little-Acorn]

Some other numbers of interest:

In 2011 (the latest date where data are available), we paid $430 billion interest on a National debt of around $14 trillion. That works out to about a 3% interest rate.

That's also around $1,400 for every man, woman, child, and illegal alien in the U.S. Or nearly $6,000 that year, for a family of four.

If the interest rate rises, which it can do quite easily (in the late 1970s and early 1980s the Prime Rate was above 10%, and sometimes topped 20%), the amount we pay for interest will rise proportionately.

If the interest rate hits 20%, as it has already done more than once in recent history, we will be paying more than $40,000 per year, for every family of four. Just to pay the interest on the National Debt. That's BEFORE that fmaily of four pays its own mortgage, electricity bills, or puts food on the table.

Our merry policy of borrowing of a trillion dollars per year, which the Obama administration has done every year it's been in office, will probably change at that point.

To put it mildly.

 

[g5000]

Unfortunately the American people are spoiled, and they will never vote for a candidate that offers pain now, as opposed to a future of doom. As long as they can maintain now - fuck the future. That's someone elses problem, or they will stay in denial.

It is a mathmatical certainty that it will soon come crashing down unless we accept the pain of reform.

Ayup.

Everyone wants the other guy to feel the pain while not taking any of the burden themselves.

It's a $17 trillion shit sandwich we all made together and sooner or later everyone has to take a bite.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

At some point this spending WELL BEYOND our income is going to bite us. I don't understand why more people aren't concerned about this.

I want to see presidential candidates take an oath that they won't sign any bill with an increase in the debt limit. As well as a commitment to offset any new increases in spending with equal (immediate) offsets in spending cuts. For example, corporate welfare & foreign aid.

Doesn't matter what side of the isle your on, this is a reasonable position. The alternative is bankruptcy.

Will you take an oath not to use any tax deductions or credits the next time you pay your taxes? Will the GOP take an oath to eliminate the $1.4 trillion of tax expenditures which are bankrupting us?


Didn't think so.

Matthew 7:5

Pointless banter that has nothing to do with the op. I live within my means. After my first divorce I destroyed EVERY credit card I had and have never gotten another one. I owe no debt and everything I own I pay outright for. So stick your higher than mighty rhetoric up your rear.

 

[FJO]

If those who hold your debt are powerful, you are powerless.

If you eliminate those who hold your debt, you are powerful and they are powerless.

 

[Redfish]

WHEN are we going to stop continually raising the debt limit?


We're not going to.

Instead, we will simply get so far into debt, that no one wants to lend us money any more.

They will signify that by raising interest rates so high, that the country's entire GDP will go to paying only the interest on the National Debt.

At that point (and not until then) will we stop the insane borrowing.

But not by our own choice.

Sadly, I think you have it right. The pigs will continue to feed at the trough until its empty, then they will eat each other.

If this does not stop, the future for our kids looks very bleak.

 

[Edgetho]

Unfortunately the American people are spoiled, and they will never vote for a candidate that offers pain now, as opposed to a future of doom. As long as they can maintain now - fuck the future. That's someone elses problem, or they will stay in denial.

It is a mathmatical certainty that it will soon come crashing down unless we accept the pain of reform.

Ayup.

Everyone wants the other guy to feel the pain while not taking any of the burden themselves.

It's a $17 trillion shit sandwich we all made together and sooner or later everyone has to take a bite.

But when House Republicans try to do something about it, you call them every name in the book.

How typical

 

[g5000]

At some point this spending WELL BEYOND our income is going to bite us. I don't understand why more people aren't concerned about this.

I want to see presidential candidates take an oath that they won't sign any bill with an increase in the debt limit. As well as a commitment to offset any new increases in spending with equal (immediate) offsets in spending cuts. For example, corporate welfare & foreign aid.

Doesn't matter what side of the isle your on, this is a reasonable position. The alternative is bankruptcy.

Will you take an oath not to use any tax deductions or credits the next time you pay your taxes? Will the GOP take an oath to eliminate the $1.4 trillion of tax expenditures which are bankrupting us?


Didn't think so.

Matthew 7:5

Pointless banter that has nothing to do with the op. I live within my means. After my first divorce I destroyed EVERY credit card I had and have never gotten another one. I owe no debt and everything I own I pay outright for. So stick your higher than mighty rhetoric up your rear.

You take advantage of tax expenditures, I am sure. And I bet you would work up quite a righteous anger defending them. You would rationalize as ably as any receiver of food stamps or Obamaphones, and tax expenditures dwarf those programs into insignificance.

So you are just as much a part of the problem as everyone else.

 

[Katzndogz]

This is what a government looks like when it's melting down.

Democrats are under a misapprehension that they will ultimately benefit from sociental disintegration. They will never accept that they are being blamed. Everyone is being blamed for the fiscal collapse. But obama is the putative leader whose lack of leadership has brought us to this place.

Ultimately, the blame goes to the abysmal state of education in this country. The loose fiscal policies that democrats promote always leads to economic collapse. It has since the Athenian empire. Had we an educated populace, they might have recognized that the democrat model was doomed. Instead, they thought the party would go on, borrowing money when the bar got low on booze.

 

[Redfish]

If those who hold your debt are powerful, you are powerless.

If you eliminate those who hold your debt, you are powerful and they are powerless.

are you suggesting that we nuke the chinese and japanese? And send CIA hit men to kill all of the US citizens who hold treasury notes?

 

[g5000]

This is what a government looks like when it's melting down.

Democrats are under a misapprehension that they will ultimately benefit from sociental disintegration. They will never accept that they are being blamed. Everyone is being blamed for the fiscal collapse. But obama is the putative leader whose lack of leadership has brought us to this place.

Ultimately, the blame goes to the abysmal state of education in this country. The loose fiscal policies that democrats promote always leads to economic collapse. It has since the Athenian empire. Had we an educated populace, they might have recognized that the democrat model was doomed. Instead, they thought the party would go on, borrowing money when the bar got low on booze.

Just Democrats, eh?

 

[FA_Q2]

At some point this spending WELL BEYOND our income is going to bite us. I don't understand why more people aren't concerned about this.

I want to see presidential candidates take an oath that they won't sign any bill with an increase in the debt limit. As well as a commitment to offset any new increases in spending with equal (immediate) offsets in spending cuts. For example, corporate welfare & foreign aid.

Doesn't matter what side of the isle your on, this is a reasonable position. The alternative is bankruptcy.

Will you take an oath not to use any tax deductions or credits the next time you pay your taxes? Will the GOP take an oath to eliminate the $1.4 trillion of tax expenditures which are bankrupting us?


Didn't think so.

Matthew 7:5

What an asinine statement. Why should he not take deductions that the government has legally bound him too? What does that have to do with the fact that we continually run large deficits?

You understand that the government has legally REQUIRED that we ALL pay for those tax reductions for other people. I oppose ALL tax write offs. They are absolutely wrong BUT there is no reason for me to not file for them when I do my taxes because I am STILL legally required to pay the taxesthatcoverthosewriteoffs.

It is akin to demanding that someone not take SS when they retire because they oppose the program. Never mind that you threatened them their entire working career with the force of law to take the money from them for SS. You don't demand that they have the right to opt out when the government is taking from them. You only seem to have that moral fiber when it comes time to receive the benefits that the government required them to pay for. Then, for some unknown reason, it is suddenly a moral requirement that they stop participating.

Hypocrisy - that is the only way to look at that.

 

[amrchaos]

When we get a balanced budget--the winning argument for Republicans, but they seemed to have forgotten it..

 

[Care4all]

You are suppose to save money during good periods and spend money during slow/bad periods....

Our problem is that congress wayyyyyy over spent during the good period, during the economic boom in the 2000's making it much more difficult to spend and pay for the things that go UP in the bad and slow periods such as unemployment expenditures and food stamp expenditures....

We don't live in a vacuum....there are consequences to congress's actions...

the deficit has gone down tremendously, each and every year of Obama's term....it has been cut in half since our peak under President Bush's last fiscal year....we are moving in the right direction, NOT in the wrong direction....why is that so hard to understand? the numbers are right before your eyes???

That being said, we will always have debt, at least for the next 2-3 decades, BECAUSE we need to pay social security back for it's surpluses that were used to mask the budget and pay for what Income taxes should have been paying for....soooo the federal govt will HAVE TO CONTINUE TO BORROW AND ADD to the national debt in order to essentially pay back social security what it borrowed from it to pay the discretionary 'bills' that they wracked up over 2-4 decades....

Those of us in the working class who have paid those surpluses in to Social Security were ROBBED when we gave tax cuts to the very wealthiest who never paid in to social security on every dollar they make...they were not a part of the surplus social security yet we took this surplus of social security and GAVE it to THEM in tax cuts....

yes, that's what our country did....REVERSE ROBIN HOOD, stole from the working class and gave it to the richest among us in tax cuts...and we were told that the government had a 5 trillion dollar projected surplus and the gvt was just giving it back to the "people" who paid it..........WHAT UTTER BULL CRAP.....

the projected surplus was the Social Security Surplus money, not a surplus from the top 1%....giving this surplus money from social security to the richest who did not pay it on most all of their money was a SLIGHT OF HAND and pure theft from the working class....

Well, NOW this has come back to bite us....what gvt 'borrowed' has to be paid back, and as far as I am concerned the top 1% who freely grabbed our social security surpluses through their tax cuts, need to pay it BACK...every trillion of it.....gosh darn it!

 

[regent]

Perhaps the nation could get along fine, pay for all its programs with our current tax rate and normal spending, but then comes the wars and we allot any amount needed for those problems. In addition we have the normal ups and downs of a capitalistic system and when in a down slump we do the Keynes thing. With Keynes as the nation recovers it is supposed to pay back the borrowed money, which we never do. So we borrow for wars and borrow for economic slumps and here we are. Are we over-defended and should we back off policing the world, and should we allow economic recessions to become depressions?

 

[FA_Q2]

Will you take an oath not to use any tax deductions or credits the next time you pay your taxes? Will the GOP take an oath to eliminate the $1.4 trillion of tax expenditures which are bankrupting us?


Didn't think so.

Matthew 7:5

Pointless banter that has nothing to do with the op. I live within my means. After my first divorce I destroyed EVERY credit card I had and have never gotten another one. I owe no debt and everything I own I pay outright for. So stick your higher than mighty rhetoric up your rear.

You take advantage of tax expenditures, I am sure. And I bet you would work up quite a righteous anger defending them. You would rationalize as ably as any receiver of food stamps or Obamaphones, and tax expenditures dwarf those programs into insignificance.

So you are just as much a part of the problem as everyone else.

And I am willing to bet that you are making completely false assumptions. How about it gramps? Do you oppose tax write offs?

It is best not to structure your arguments off of claims others have not made btw...

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Will you take an oath not to use any tax deductions or credits the next time you pay your taxes? Will the GOP take an oath to eliminate the $1.4 trillion of tax expenditures which are bankrupting us?


Didn't think so.

Matthew 7:5

Pointless banter that has nothing to do with the op. I live within my means. After my first divorce I destroyed EVERY credit card I had and have never gotten another one. I owe no debt and everything I own I pay outright for. So stick your higher than mighty rhetoric up your rear.

You take advantage of tax expenditures, I am sure. And I bet you would work up quite a righteous anger defending them. You would rationalize as ably as any receiver of food stamps or Obamaphones, and tax expenditures dwarf those programs into insignificance.

So you are just as much a part of the problem as everyone else.

All assumptions and you're wrong on every point. I have stated on multiple occasions that I would be willing to pay more in taxes if I could trust congress not to blow it on bullshit.

Now crawl back under your bridge.

 

[Redfish]

You are suppose to save money during good periods and spend money during slow/bad periods....

Our problem is that congress wayyyyyy over spent during the good period, during the economic boom in the 2000's making it much more difficult to spend and pay for the things that go UP in the bad and slow periods such as unemployment expenditures and food stamp expenditures....

We don't live in a vacuum....there are consequences to congress's actions...

the deficit has gone down tremendously, each and every year of Obama's term....it has been cut in half since our peak under President Bush's last fiscal year....we are moving in the right direction, NOT in the wrong direction....why is that so hard to understand? the numbers are right before your eyes???

That being said, we will always have debt, at least for the next 2-3 decades, BECAUSE we need to pay social security back for it's surpluses that were used to mask the budget and pay for what Income taxes should have been paying for....soooo the federal govt will HAVE TO CONTINUE TO BORROW AND ADD to the national debt in order to essentially pay back social security what it borrowed from it to pay the discretionary 'bills' that they wracked up over 2-4 decades....

Those of us in the working class who have paid those surpluses in to Social Security were ROBBED when we gave tax cuts to the very wealthiest who never paid in to social security on every dollar they make...they were not a part of the surplus social security yet we took this surplus of social security and GAVE it to THEM in tax cuts....

yes, that's what our country did....REVERSE ROBIN HOOD, stole from the working class and gave it to the richest among us in tax cuts...and we were told that the government had a 5 trillion dollar projected surplus and the gvt was just giving it back to the "people" who paid it..........WHAT UTTER BULL CRAP.....

the projected surplus was the Social Security Surplus money, not a surplus from the top 1%....giving this surplus money from social security to the richest who did not pay it on most all of their money was a SLIGHT OF HAND and pure theft from the working class....

Well, NOW this has come back to bite us....what gvt 'borrowed' has to be paid back, and as far as I am concerned the top 1% who freely grabbed our social security surpluses through their tax cuts, need to pay it BACK...every trillion of it.....gosh darn it!

your envy of successful people is noted. The Bush tax cuts (now the obama tax cuts) cut taxes for every person that pays taxes--not just the rich.

you are very good at repeating the dem/lib lying talking points on this topic. But nothing you said is true.

Now, if you want my fix for social security---collect the SS tax (FICA) on all income, not just the first 110K. Problem solved. SS is no longer a forced saving plan, it is a tax, and as a tax it should be collected on all income.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Some other numbers of interest:

In 2011 (the latest date where data are available), we paid $430 billion interest on a National debt of around $14 trillion. That works out to about a 3% interest rate.

That's also around $1,400 for every man, woman, child, and illegal alien in the U.S. Or nearly $6,000 that year, for a family of four.

If the interest rate rises, which it can do quite easily (in the late 1970s and early 1980s the Prime Rate was above 10%, and sometimes topped 20%), the amount we pay for interest will rise proportionately.

If the interest rate hits 20%, as it has already done more than once in recent history, we will be paying more than $40,000 per year, for every family of four. Just to pay the interest on the National Debt. That's BEFORE that family of four pays its own mortgage, electricity bills, or puts food on the table.

Our merry policy of borrowing of a trillion dollars per year, which the Obama administration has done every year it's been in office, will probably change at that point.

To put it mildly.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Pointless banter that has nothing to do with the op. I live within my means. After my first divorce I destroyed EVERY credit card I had and have never gotten another one. I owe no debt and everything I own I pay outright for. So stick your higher than mighty rhetoric up your rear.

You take advantage of tax expenditures, I am sure. And I bet you would work up quite a righteous anger defending them. You would rationalize as ably as any receiver of food stamps or Obamaphones, and tax expenditures dwarf those programs into insignificance.

So you are just as much a part of the problem as everyone else.

And I am willing to bet that you are making completely false assumptions. How about it gramps? Do you oppose tax write offs?

It is best not to structure your arguments off of claims others have not made btw...

Yes I oppose them. Create a flat tax system and exempt the first 15k or so.

But taxes aren't really the problem. We give them more they just spend more.

 

[Care4all]

You are suppose to save money during good periods and spend money during slow/bad periods....

Our problem is that congress wayyyyyy over spent during the good period, during the economic boom in the 2000's making it much more difficult to spend and pay for the things that go UP in the bad and slow periods such as unemployment expenditures and food stamp expenditures....

We don't live in a vacuum....there are consequences to congress's actions...

the deficit has gone down tremendously, each and every year of Obama's term....it has been cut in half since our peak under President Bush's last fiscal year....we are moving in the right direction, NOT in the wrong direction....why is that so hard to understand? the numbers are right before your eyes???

That being said, we will always have debt, at least for the next 2-3 decades, BECAUSE we need to pay social security back for it's surpluses that were used to mask the budget and pay for what Income taxes should have been paying for....soooo the federal govt will HAVE TO CONTINUE TO BORROW AND ADD to the national debt in order to essentially pay back social security what it borrowed from it to pay the discretionary 'bills' that they wracked up over 2-4 decades....

Those of us in the working class who have paid those surpluses in to Social Security were ROBBED when we gave tax cuts to the very wealthiest who never paid in to social security on every dollar they make...they were not a part of the surplus social security yet we took this surplus of social security and GAVE it to THEM in tax cuts....

yes, that's what our country did....REVERSE ROBIN HOOD, stole from the working class and gave it to the richest among us in tax cuts...and we were told that the government had a 5 trillion dollar projected surplus and the gvt was just giving it back to the "people" who paid it..........WHAT UTTER BULL CRAP.....

the projected surplus was the Social Security Surplus money, not a surplus from the top 1%....giving this surplus money from social security to the richest who did not pay it on most all of their money was a SLIGHT OF HAND and pure theft from the working class....

Well, NOW this has come back to bite us....what gvt 'borrowed' has to be paid back, and as far as I am concerned the top 1% who freely grabbed our social security surpluses through their tax cuts, need to pay it BACK...every trillion of it.....gosh darn it!

your envy of successful people is noted. The Bush tax cuts (now the obama tax cuts) cut taxes for every person that pays taxes--not just the rich.

you are very good at repeating the dem/lib lying talking points on this topic. But nothing you said is true.

Now, if you want my fix for social security---collect the SS tax (FICA) on all income, not just the first 110K. Problem solved. SS is no longer a forced saving plan, it is a tax, and as a tax it should be collected on all income.

NOT REALLY dear Redfish, what I said is a FACT....the gvt TOLD US that they were creating these tax cuts because we had a projected budget surplus of +/- $5 trillion over the next 10 years, and they said we had to give this surplus money back to the people who paid in to taxes.....

SURPLUS ESTIMATE HITS $5.6 TRILLION - New York Times

www.nytimes.com/2001/01/31/us/surplus-estimate-hits-5.6-trillion.html*
Even as projections of the federal budget surplus were revised upward once again, the Bush administration squared off with ... Published: January 31, 2001.



What they NEGLECTED to expound on, is telling us that these projected surplus monies CAME FROM SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUSES, yet they gave:

Tax Policy Center, stating that 24.2% of tax savings went to households in the top one percent of income compared to the share of 8.9% that went to the middle 20 percent....

The TOP 1% should not have been part of the tax cuts at all, it was NOT projected surplus from their federal income taxes, it was a projected surplus from the working class who paid in to social security for every dime they made or near every dime they made....these were social security projected surpluses, PERIOD.....

I have no reason to be jealous of the top 1% young man, my parents are in the top 1%, my husband and I when both working were one edge from the top 1%, I didn't pay social security on nearly half of what I singularly made, because I went over the cap....

all I am telling you is the truth...it WAS projected social security surpluses, the top 1% in the realms of Gates, and Hilton, and Buffet and Romney pays NOTHING in social security taxes...yet they were given 24% of the tax cuts coming from the projected SS surplus.....

it was a slight of hand.....period.

Now this money has to be paid back over the next 30 years...the working class will pay their share with taking smaller benefit payments, with raising the age they can retire, etc etc, and the very wealthiest will have to pay it back with higher taxes....

We will have national debt for a very long time, until the boomers are all gone, in the very least....