Posted on 01/20/2016 7:23:51 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Does anyone remember the national debt?
Judging from the presidential campaign so far, perhaps we should put the debt's image on a milk carton somewhere. In the last Republican debate, there was precisely one question on the debt -- and the candidates answered it by talking about their tax plans. That was far too typical. According to the FiveThirtyEight website, "the deficit" was mentioned an average of two times in the first five televised Republican debates (including the "undercard" debates) by all the candidates -- and the moderators -- combined. And "the national debt" was brought up an average of 6.5 times. This compares to an average of 3.2 "deficit" mentions and 10.9 "debt" mentions in the 20 GOP debates during the 2012 campaign.
But while the candidates have been wrangling over such vital issues as fantasy sports betting or Ted Cruz's citizenship status, our growing sea of red ink has quietly risen toward $19 trillion. One might think our impending national bankruptcy might be worth a bit more attention.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama took a bow for reducing our annual budget deficit by two-thirds during his time in office. He's correct. Since its high of $1.4 trillion in 2009, the deficit had dropped to just $439 billion last year, although the president failed to mention that his policies, including the 2009 stimulus bill, helped drive the deficit to those record levels, and policies that he opposed, such as sequestration, helped bring it down.
But the respite is just temporary. According to the Congressional Budget Office's newest estimates, released yesterday, the deficit is already rising again, and will exceed $44 billion this year. By 2022, just six years from now, we will once again be experiencing trillion-dollar deficits every year.
And even with lower deficits, the national debt is still rising. By 2025, our debt will top $27 trillion. Yet, Congress is not only kicking the can down the road, it is making the problem worse. Just last year, Congress put in place spending that will raise the debt by $1.2 trillion over the next ten years. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called 2015 "a banner year for fiscal irresponsibility."
And none of this includes the more than $69 trillion in unfunded liabilities being run up by Medicare and Social Security.
But out on the campaign trail? Crickets.
We know what the Democrats would do about the debt -- make it worse. Bernie Sanders has proposed at least $18 trillion in new spending over the next ten years, and even after the trillions in additional taxes he seeks, his plans would add trillions to the debt. In comparison, Hillary looks like a model of fiscal rectitude. She has proposed only $1.1 trillion in new spending, although more proposals to expand government are coming. Both Democrats oppose any reform of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. In fact, Bernie seeks to expand both programs, while Hillary suggests she would consider new benefits. So the Democratic plans are clear: squeeze some more passengers onto the Titanic.
But what about Republicans? They have all issued very detailed tax proposals, but with the occasional exception of Chris Christie and Rand Paul, they have generally skipped the more difficult discussion of spending cuts. Some, like Donald Trump, join Democrats in opposing entitlement reform. Others simply duck the question.
Unfortunately, those tax proposals, even using dynamic scoring to account for increased economic growth, will reduce government revenues, by a relatively trivial $768 billion (Cruz) to a huuuuge $10 trillion (Trump) over the next ten years. (Rand Paul's proposal is the exception, resulting in a $737 billion increase in revenue after taking into account economic growth.) Of course, we should want the government to have less of our money. But unless the revenue reductions are accompanied by reductions in spending, they will only add to the debt. It's called math.
The debt matters. Not only is it remarkably unfair to our children and grandchildren, it is imposing costs today. Our economic growth is slower and our wages lower than they would be if it were smaller. Other political and economic priorities are being squeezed out. Interest on the debt was projected to reach $261 billion this year, and exceed $500 billion by 2020 even before factoring in the recent budget-busting deals.
One might think that was worth talking about. So far in this campaign, one would apparently be wrong.
-- Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis
We’re headed for the fiscal cliffs like Greece.
But no one wants to talk about cutting the debt because cutting benefits is about as popular as the Typhoid Mary.
We’ll muddle through because this is our best option going forward and debt reform can be left to be tackled at some later date in the future.
“One might think that was worth talking about. So far in this campaign, one would apparently be wrong.”
Funny, I was thinking on the way to work this morning, that no one is addressing the market meltdown either.
Trump has talked about trade, and leaving in Ethanol subsidies, and Cruz has talked about eliminating certain government programs/bureaucracies.
Both have talked about Taxes.
That’s about all that has happened, for the most part.
They are lock step on this. Let us not forget Cheney’s “deficits don’t matter”.
That innocuous debt these socialist so blithely dismiss are the futures of my three grand daughters. I’ll see them burn in hell before I let that happen.
Trump is all over this. This is one of his main talking points.
There was a time when deficits were actually talked about by the MSM.
But Caliph Baraq proved you can buy an election with entitlements no matter how bad the economy is. So the MSM doesn’t care any more, at least until a Republican is POTUS.
It seems like we just passed $18T (and $17T and $16T and $15T and $14T and $13T and $12T and $11T - all under the Obama regime!), but we’re about to top $19T too ($200,000 per family, or more like $400,000 per taxpaying household). This crushing debt will pose an exceptionally grave danger to our children and grandchildren, but the other dangers are so much worse that even a threat as serious as this reckless and unsustainable debt pales in comparison to the other top threats.
#1. The Second Amendment. If we allow ourselves to be disarmed, America will die, which is worse than just crippled by debt.
#2. Amnesty. If we reward 11 million “undocumented democrats” (criminals who entered our country illegally) with citizenship, the thugs will have a permanent majority, and America will die.
#3 Obamacare. If we allow that terrible law to continue, socialism will grow without bound, in what used to be a free country, and America will die.
It is only after a candidate meets my standards on those three existential issues that I’ll even bother evaluating their financial responsibility. I want a candidate who will slash FedGov down to its proper size (and that is a yuge cut), but the other priorities are even more important.
Apparently they’ve come to the conclusion that the entire global economy depends on our printing presses, and the debt does not matter.
The national debt problem hasn’t changed.
But if you want to be ignored, talk about it.
It’s not high on the radar now and a stock market crash won’t change that.
We have been betrayed by our own party.
Bernie wants people to pay 90% of their income in taxes...How can that be addressed with anything other than laughter?
When Trump takes ‘em on, he’ll address it.
“But no one wants to talk about cutting the debt because cutting benefits is about as popular as the Typhoid Mary.”
We could cut benefits to illegal aliens. We could cut SS benefits to dependent children, no more $650 a month because you got the ‘crazy letter’ from a doctor. It won’t happen though, not until it goes completely bust and all the politicians flee the country.
There is a difference between the Debt and the yearly budget deficit. Years ago, politicians and the MSM worried about the National Debt. Now they brag about ‘reducing the deficit.’ Compared to what? Last year’s way out of whack budget? We have to get rid of it completely to even start to make a dent in the horrific mess that is the Debt.
If you want to get really depressed, read Dave Stockman’s book “The Great Deformation”
What do you mean not addressing it?
I’m getting tired of repetition in Trump speeches. Always the same 19 Trillion, soon to be 21 Trillion speech, that ten years ago very few even had heard the term Trillion.
So I don’t get what the article is talking about
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