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Politicians don’t fear debt. They fear unpopularity.


Muda69

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1 minute ago, DanteEstonia said:

Until the debt is paid off.

My share.

And how can the debt be paid off if spending continues to rise and rise and rise?

Exactly what is "your share"?   40% of your gross income?  50%?  75%?

 

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  • 3 months later...

Bipartisan Senate Effort Predictably Kills Rand Paul's Plan to Balance the Federal Budget: https://reason.com/2019/06/03/bipartisan-senate-effort-predictably-kills-rand-pauls-plan-to-balance-the-federal-budget/

Quote

This year, Sen. Rand Paul's (R–Ky.) effort to balance the federal budget didn't even get a floor vote in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Paul's so-called "Pennies Plan" failed a procedural vote on Monday evening when only 22 senators voted in favor of a cloture motion that would have brought the bill to a final vote. A majority of Republicans and all Democrats voted against proceeding to a floor vote on the bill. It's another sign that fiscal responsibility is all but dead in Congress, even as the national debt heads toward record highs and the budget deficit approaches $1 trillion this year.

"We teach our children that money doesn't grow on trees, and then they grow up watching politicians pretend otherwise," Paul said before the vote. "Meanwhile, our debt soars past $22 trillion, endangers our country, and artificially limits what our nation can achieve."

Paul's proposal called for cutting 2 percent from all federal line items for each of the next five years and would reduce federal spending by about $11 trillion over the next decade—even though spending would rise after the first five years. It's an adaptation of the so-called "Penny Plan" that Paul has been pushing for several years, though he now says an additional penny in cuts for every federal dollar spent is necessary to get the budget to balance.

Indeed, the gap between what the federal government spends and what it takes in is growing wider. During the first seven months of the current fiscal year, which began in October 2018, the federal government ran a $531 billion deficit. That's a 38 percent increase over the same period of time last year.

According to an analysis from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, about 60 percent of this year's expected deficit is the result of policies—mostly last year's huge increase in spending that shattered those Obama-era budget caps—put in place by current legislators and signed by the current president.

The share of debt held by the public currently stands at about 78 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a shorthand measure of a country's economic output in a single year. The numbers are actually worse than that, because "debt held by the public" accounts for only $15.8 trillion of the $21 trillion national debt. The rest is held by parts of the federal government, such as the Social Security trust fund.

Alarm bells are starting to sound. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) warnedin April that America's current fiscal situation is "unsustainable." The GAO estimates that the amount of debt held by the public is on track to surpass the all-time high of 106 percent of GDP within the next 13 to 20 years.

Meanwhile, Congress seems as apathetic as ever, if not more, about the growing pile of federal debt.

....

Cowardice in the Congress.  Why am I not surprised?

 

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