National debt nears $40 trillion: How we got here and why it matters

2 days ago by gedaliyah to c/news

The national debt is expected to hit a record high as soon as this week, crossing a major threshold of $40 trillion. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins explains why that milestone is a warning sign for many economists.

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andrewta -38 points 2 days ago

Nobody’s going to like this answer. But the simple reality is this. Basically everything has to be cut. Yes, the rich need to pay their fair share. But there’s no way we can tax our way out of that kind of debt. It is not realistic. It is pure fantasy to think a person a company an organization, a country or anything else can literally bring in that kind of money. It’s impossible. So yes, tax the wealthy. But we are gonna have to make some serious hard cuts.

And we cannot just do cuts in one area. It will have to be cuts across the board.

And now I’m going to show my hypocrisy. I just said everything, but I’m going to turn around and say the only thing that we really can’t cut is Social Security. The elderly, who live on Social Security realistically can’t get another job. So we’d have a choice a bunch of old people in the streets or keep Social Security. So Social Security would have to stay and everything across the board has to be cut. And if we literally can’t make enough cuts without cutting into Social Security then yeah we’d have to cut Social Security too.

That means everybody’s pet project. Everybody’s favorite thing that the government spends money on is going to get cut. And yes, as I said if we can’t cut enough out of everything and we have to cut Social Security then Social Security would have to be cut back.

The other alternative is the entire country goes bankrupt. And I know there are people in lemmy that think that’s a good thing. You pay attention anything in economy or economics I should say. The US economy is too intertwined with other countries. If we go bankrupt, it will take a lot of economies around the world right with it. So that’s just not an option. So the US is going to have to cut their spending on pretty much everything. The alternative is bankruptcy

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dreksob 15 points 2 days ago

Nobody’s going to like this answer. But the simple reality is this. Basically everything has to be cut.

Actually, exactly the opposite, corruption needs to be cut,

Cutting anything else just makes the problem worse.

Yes, the rich need to pay their fair share. But there’s no way we can tax our way out of that kind of debt. It is not realistic. It is pure fantasy to think a person a company an organization, a country or anything else can literally bring in that kind of money. It’s impossible.

You dont get out of this by cutting, that just leads to a depression.

You get out of this by aggressively going after corruption and corrupt loans, declaring those loans to be void, and enforcing that.

The other alternative is the entire country goes bankrupt.

Cutting everything is how the country goes bankrupt, thats literally the whole goal.

The very wealthy get in positions of power, and make the goverment go into massive debt giving them huge paydays. Then you cut all the things the government is supposed to do to service that "debt." The economy takes a nosedive, but thats ok, you can just borrow more money to pay the very wealthy. Then make the government decalare bankruptcy, and "sell" the government off to private holdings (who own all that debt) for pennies on the dollar.

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quarkquasar 1 point 13 hours ago

I'd be fine with this, as long as the rich were properly dealt with, first and foremost.

And I mean all of them. The Waltons? Nearly all the money they've made should go toward the national debt.

The Sacklers? All of their money to the debt, all of them imprisoned for what they've done.

And so on down the list, it would leave many of those families completely destitute and nearly destroyed, and then we can start cutting from the actual innocent people in the country who haven't, y'know, tried to destroy it for their own personal gain.

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dreksob 1 point 4 hours ago

Yes

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