A couple of points that are missing from the campaign trail.
We all know that the country works on debt….we constantly spend more than we take in….and yet no one wants to fix this problem because it might piss off a corporation or two.
Our national debt has a record high ….
It’s a record no one is happy about: The gross national debt in the US went above $35 trillion Monday, a first. The number (which, specifically, was $35,001,278,179,208.67) was noted in the Treasury Department’s daily report on America’s debt, the New York Times reports. Debt is accumulating at a quick clip, with the $34 trillion mark just having been passed for the first time in January, and the $33 trillion mark last September, Fox Business reports. Last month, the Congressional Budget Office said the national debt is on track to pass $56 trillion in the next decade.
he Times notes that given how little Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have said about the topic while campaigning for November’s presidential election, the problem will likely “only worsen in the coming years.” Social Security and Medicare largely drive the national debt, and there is resistance across the board to implementing cuts to those programs. Plus, interest rates are high, and some federal programs have proven more expensive than their original estimates. Meanwhile, federal budget deficits are also on the rise; the latest estimate for this year’s deficit is $1.9 trillion, which would be the third-largest in the country’s history and $200 billion more than last year’s.
Since neither candidate has said much about this problem it must not be important.
We could fix this problem, yes it would take time, by making the lay-about corporations pay their flippin’ taxes….
The country is not the only debt problem…..individual debt has also hit a record amount.
Americans owe more money than ever on their credit cards: $1.14 trillion. That’s after consumers added $27 billion to their tab in the second quarter, a 5.8% jump from the year before, a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says. Credit card delinquency rates increased, as well, CNBC reports. Borrowers ages 18 to 29 and 30 to 39 had the biggest delinquency increases; the New York Fed said those groups probably were heavily affected by COVID-19. They “may have overextended during the pandemic,” researchers said.
Americans used some of their pandemic-related federal stimulus money to pay down their credit card debt in 2020, said Ted Rossman of Bankrate in a statement. But balances shot up again starting in 2021, he said, per CBS News, “fueled by a post-pandemic boom in services spending as well as high inflation and high interest rates.” About 9.1% of credit card balances went into delinquency in the past year, the New York Fed found. The Urban Institute reported in May that more consumers are using credit cards to stay afloat, with 60% of them paying for their groceries that way. Overall, Rossman said, “More people are carrying more debt for longer periods of time.”
Credit cards are keeping some families afloat in this time of extreme prices…..
This will come back to bite us in the butt.
To paraphrase Marx….Credit is the opiate of the masses.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Credit is great if used wisely and managed properly. I am a master at it.
You are in a small minority these days….plus with the way things are it is what keeps people in necessities. chuq
Once people start using credit cards to pay for everyday grocery shopping, that’s a surefire indicator of a huge problem bubbling away under the surface.
Best wishes, Pete.
That is the crux of my proposal….there are problems that need attention. chuq
Elimination of debt is far more than just increasing the taxes of the rich. There’s canceling programs, typically starting with programs of little or no use. But then once started, what programs you gonna cancel that doesn’t threaten a voter constituency somewhere? The other is simply reducing institutional budgets, but what institutions, and reduce their budgets by how much and to what effect on the nation as a whole? The other traditional fallback is to attack “wasteful spending” which in itself is subjective. Far easier to raise taxes… but of course raise taxes on the rich, and of course corporate profits, because the middle class is already burdened with their own credit cards because they had to use them to “survive” in a pricey economy.
No matter how you look at it, it ain’t easy… and it will take years to balance the budget…. and… the immediate situation of the country between international events (wars, current and future), domestic politics, and bailing out the population when erratic weather patterns (due to global warming) destroy homes, the spending will surely increase. I certainly have no answer. Maybe adopt the Trumpian idea of isolationism will work. Let the rest of the world go up in flames without our money. But that won’t stop the bad weather from blowing/flooding your home.
Yes it is a problem indeed….but cutting taxes does not help and financing every little war does not either…../at least try something. chuq
Our whole culture has been twisted and warped by a variety of factors that has left us in a situation where being in debt is considered normal. Every time I turn on the local radio station I’m hearing ads from local credit unions telling people they can buy that motorcycle or ATV or boat or car or whatever by just taking out another loan. Too many loans? Take out one of our consolidation loans to lump all your little loans, and your credit card debt, into one big debt and refinance that and have just one low monthly payment to make on that, and then your credit card debt is cleared up and you can max those out again.
It’s a mess and I don’t see how we can get out of this mess without completely changing our entire culture, cleaning out that bunch of whining, cowardly, greedy cry babies running the government in Congress and the state legislatures, and bringing in new laws to rein in corporations.
20 years ago I cut up my cards and have never looked back…..I agree a whole new look is needed min DC but that will not happen as long as those sitting in judgement are bought by those causing this problem…..chuq