We have been running 1 trillion dollar annual budget deficits, with neither party, the media making any objections.
Is that what you’d call crossing the Rubicon?
We passed the mark after 2008.... any pretense of fiscal responsibility was totally tossed out the window after that, the national debt doubled and we are spending so much money now that we don’t have, that we have an inevitable destiny with national bankruptcy.
Realize too, that we don’t necessarily need to become insolvent, to be insolvent, only the mere honest reflection that it will happen. Because at that point, the demand for sovereign debt would diminish as buyers would know that interest and principal will not be repayed.
As soon as that realization happens, rates will go up. And when rates go up, as treasuries mature and are replaced by new ones, they’ll have interest rates that demand far greater tax income to support, until you snuff out the Goose laying the golden eggs (the national economy).
Bottom line, it’s way too late to address this now. The only answer is “every man/woman/child for themselves”. The end isn’t near, it’s here...
My study of the depression indicates that the decades leading up to it were similar to ours. Boom and bust.
Folks tired of that and finally elected an administration of fiscal prudence. Right man, wrong time, and when the economy failed it had a very long way to fall. And as they figured out that something needed to be done, they’d waited too long and no amount of stimulus would solve the problem. It would take a World War and a total of 30 yrs to work it out.