Congress, Politics

Debt: $26,003,751,512,344.91 . . . In Case You Are Counting

download-7Yes, we have reached over $26 trillion in debt and members are demanding more stimulus money.  According to data released yesterday by the Treasury Department, we hit $26,003,751,512,344.91. That is the definition of ballooning and runaway debt but no one seems to be talking about it. We are now a credit card country that believes we can put the entire economy on layaway.

 Just to keep track, we hit $24 trillion for the first time just last April 7, 2020.   We then hit $25 trillion for the first time on May 5. Get the picture?

Once again, this all seem weirdly immaterial to the news or newsmaker, Democrat or Republicans. We are piling on debt that will smother the rising generation, a lost generation facing massive debt and a destroyed global economy.  

Consider that in 2009, debt was 52.3 % of our GDP.  By December 2019, it reached 79.2%. We are now approaching our debt-to-GDP ratio from post–World War II high of 106.1%.

Each new spending bill has a catchy title and a massive unpaid bill.  There was the $2.0 trillion CARES legislation. Then there was the massive $3.0 trillion HEROES Act.  There are new trillion dollar stimuluses as well as demands for approval of programs like a $14 trillion reparations bill.

Politicians love crisis because it allows spending with little scrutiny.  They can spend trillions and kick the debt can down the road for someone else to address. A similar thing happened in states like Illinois with public pensions.  Politicians signed off on larger and larger pensions with teacher unions and other public employees while enjoying ample political endorsements and support. Then the debt ballooned and left the states near bankruptcy.  Yet, voters did not blame these leaders. Indeed, COVID-19 hit and the next round of spending will include bailouts of cities and states.

Recently we discussed how New York de Blasio demanded over $7 trillion and expressed frustration that it had not arrived because Washington is “the only place that prints money.” We could not possibly have any problems by just printing trillions to cover these costs, right? De Blasio is putting the hype back into hyperinflation.

So, we are left with calls for trillions in more spending and politicians declaring “print, baby, print.”  You only have to look from Greece to Zimbabwe to Venezuela to see how this story ends.

62 thoughts on “Debt: $26,003,751,512,344.91 . . . In Case You Are Counting”

  2. Perhaps more rational approaches to the necessities would be the place to start. It would mean laying off over half a million parasites but the private, for profit, health care insurance industry absorbs trillions of dollars a year from all Americans. The cost of US health care per capita for the 35th place as far as quality goes is double that of the 34 better systems, per capita. They do not treat health care as a consumer product but as a service. The facts are that Americans waste trillions a year this way.

    Perhaps pulling back on military spending might help. The future of military forces will depend more on technology and innovation and less on billion dollar aircraft carriers. Today’s colonialism is not achieved through military means but through economic means. There is no super power conflict. The nukes are already here doing their job-keeping us from destroying ourselves. Cut military spending by a third.

    Repeal the tax cuts for the rich. You water the tree at the roots, not the leaves. Bush’s and Trump’s tax cuts repealed could add several trillion a year back into the budget. This country has not done better through reducing taxes on the wealthy. They will continue to spend. The focus should be on raising the wages of the work force to provide more disposable cash to fuel the economy and make the wealthier richer, and paying more taxes.

    The primary reason for the deficit is that the US is an oligarchy run by those who can buy politicians. No other country does this. It is against the law in most advanced democracies to fund politicians. The US needs to evolve, progress, smarten up, become democratic.

  3. The U.S. must join other nations in a class-action law suit against China in the amount of $25 trillion, subject to increase, for economic destruction, lost income, medical care, pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of consortium, future losses, future medical care and punitive damages for malicious concealment of the fact and scientific characteristics of an extant and burgeoning epidemic-cum-pandemic inside China, gross dereliction and gross negligence.

    1. Then it follows that Americans must do a class action lawsuit against the blithering idiot Trump for waiting six weeks and ignoring all the warnings. The virus may have started in China. Every year a flu virus starts in China. However, it was incompetent leadership that caused this degree of mess. Listen to Trump’s words while he jerked himself off for six weeks.

      2. Hey, here’s some more predictions yesterday from our always sober and cautious President, Mister “zero cases” Trump:

        “The Federal Reserve is wrong so often. I see the numbers also, and do MUCH better than they do. We will have a very good Third Quarter, a great Fourth Quarter, and one of our best ever years in 2021. We will also soon have a Vaccine & Therapeutics/Cure. That’s my opinion. WATCH!”

      3. By your incoherent “logic,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt should be sued for WWII, given the fact that he not only possessed full knowledge of the plan to attack Pearl Harbor but, in fact, caused the attack through economic manipulation against Japan. He should also be sued for the “Great Depression” given the fact that his pompous, communistic, unconstitutional and idiotic intervention transformed a usual and customary phase of an economic cycle into an unmitigated 13-year disaster. Comrade General Secretary F—— D—— Roosevelt was even more unconstitutional and obtuse than the anti-American traitor, “Crazy Abe” Lincoln.

        Fact vs. “Fake” Propaganda.

        Hindsight is always 20/20. You have really good vision – backasswards.

        You can bet President Trump relied on advisers. Those advisers were receiving what turned out to be malicious misinformation from the communists in China, who had been nurtured and paid by their sympathizers and apologists, Clinton, Bush and Obama for decades.

        Thank you for pounding the last nail in the coffin in the case against China.

  4. Easyi to balance. Since we spent some of it on the pandemic it has become a real debt while much of that is money that is set to be spent in the future. Just cancel whatever program isn’t needed, Downsize the government by not replacing retirees. And quit employing more for a while. A good place to start is anyone ‘politically appointed’ by the former administrations.

    Also demand the compete forumula be used not just GDP but GDP minus Cost of Government) = Net Domestic Product.

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