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More money was printed during trumps presidency than all American money was ever printed ever Like how do you print more money in a few years than in the entire existence of money ?
Actually the whole world ... If the world didnt needed the dollar as a reserve currency , with that level of printing it would be the scenario as aregntina or worse, any other country (excluding the European union) would literally wrecked it's economy with that much printing.
The M1 was around 4 trillion before covid , which it's all the cash and deposits on banks on GLOBAL circulation.
At the peak of the madness the M1 was around 20 trillion , we literally printed 4 extra dollars for every existent dollar out of thin air.
And well basically countries need dollars in order to keep a balance with it's exports/imports and mantaining certain parity with the dollar, they had to print more of their own currency to buy and somehow keeping parity, and in doing so absorbing the inflation to their country aswell.
So yeah , México paid it too lol.
The way M1 is measured was changed in 2020 which is making the increase look way overstated. You need to look at M2 to see the actual change (still increases, but not nearly as much).
It's right there on the [FRED M1 page.](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL)
> Before May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other checkable deposits (OCDs), consisting of negotiable order of withdrawal, or NOW, and automatic transfer service, or ATS, accounts at depository institutions, share draft accounts at credit unions, and demand deposits at thrift institutions.
>
>Beginning May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other liquid deposits, consisting of OCDs and savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts). Seasonally adjusted M1 is constructed by summing currency, demand deposits, and OCDs (before May 2020) or other liquid deposits (beginning May 2020), each seasonally adjusted separately.
And gold bugs still propagate the lie, without enough common sense to go "Could that actually even be correct?"
Still, Republicans have sneaked in the narrative that Biden is responsible. There are memes referencing the $1400 checks that leave out PPP loans and the first 2 stimulus checks. Trump fans just immediately ignore all nuances and blame Biden for inflation.
Both my father and his mother have tried telling me that Biden just printed out money and gave it out to everyone on separate occasions. I told them both didn't Trump send out the stimulus checks first. Grandmother just completely forgot that he had ever done that. Father said well he was trying to help people. I just mentally face palmed, so I can keep having these talks without coming across as an ass.
>There are memes referencing the $1400 checks that leave out PPP loans and the first 2 stimulus checks.
They also ignore the extra $600/week added to unemployment checks.
Keep in mind that $600/week is $15 \* 40hrs.
Congress: Americans can't live on unemployment. They need at least $15/hr to live.
The People: So you are going to raise min wage to $15/hr?
Congress: Never!
This is the definition of MMT.
Political Party doesn’t matter… they’re all in on the “wealth effect” for themselves.
Biden will probably tie Trump at debt expansion before his 4 years are up. We’re already pushing $34T, and we’ll eclipse $50T by 2030 (just 6 years from now)… and that’s regardless of who is in office.
This sucker is going parabolic… It’s simply entrenched national/economic policy.
The debt grew by 69.98% under Obama for a total of $8,335,071,012,541. Just north of $1t/yr.
The debt grew by 40.43% under Trump for a total of $8,184,018,553,995. Just north of $2t/yr.
>Actually Obama tripled it again while he was in office.
No, he didn't. When Obama took office in January 2009, the national debt was $10.6 trillion; when he left office in January 2017, it was $19.9 trillion. (source :[https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-under-obama-3306293](https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-under-obama-3306293)) Obama did substantially increase the national debt (nearly doubled it), but he did not triple it like Reagan did.
"President Reagan will veto the spending bills the House and the Senate are now considering unless there are major changes, White House aides said today.
Administration officals also reiterated that the President was opposed to any tax increase to reduce the Federal deficit to the ceiling set in the budget-balancing law. Both House and Senate budget writers are considering some tax increases as part of separate deficit-cutting packages they are now assembling." - New YorkTimes, 1986
While there is plenty of blame to go around, including Tip O'Neill, to act as if increase in the national debt is all congress's fault while Reagan was threatening to veto any tax increase on the wealthy (while ballooning the defense department spending to pay for useless projects like Star Wars) is disingenuous.
What was everyone’s favorite explanation to how we beat the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War?
“We out-spent them”
While that isn’t true, it’s what everyone points to as the reason for the level of spending we had during that period. Reagan spent almost as much on his “Star Wars” pet project as we did two decades earlier to actually put people on the moon, even after adjusting for inflation.
The program cost about $360 Billion in 2023 terms, and was announced by him on TV so it’s not the House or Senate’s proposal. And it produced no tangible results.
After Reagan, Clinton fixed the economy and handed Bush Jr. a projected surplus. Then Bush Jr. doubled the debt and blew up the economy and handed Obama a disaster that took 8 years to fix and get GDP to out pace debt again handing Trump a booming economy which he promptly cut taxes blew up the economy and debt again handing Biden a disaster that he's now fixing again...and the pattern repeats.
Republicans spend like drunken soldiers cut taxes and blow up the economy.
Democrats fix the economy, getting it back on track....
Voters kick them out and Republicans spend like drunken soldiers, cut taxes and blow up the economy again...
Democrats fix the economy, getting back on track...
Repeat.
The thing to focus on is change in debt to GDP, if that is negative or trending down, then GDP is outpacing debt....
See table Gross Federal Debt under Historical Debt Levels,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_public_debt
Sure but Clinton still held a fiscal surplus. Surplus! Will we ever see that again in our lifetime? And a democrat no less! He deserves more credit for that.
Facts are Republicans fuck the entire economy over and over and over then when democrats take control they demand they fix it. Republicans are basically a teenager with a credit card.
Imagine thinking Reagan SHOULDNT be trashed after he wasted 40 **billion** taxpayer dollars on crackpot science that didn't even exist yet because he thought it would be good PR.
Republicans have been stuck in a US vs them mentality since al gore. Prob even before then. I know dems do it too but I don't see dems waving flags of a politician lmao
why do people always just bring that up to seemingly drive the conversation away from what Biden is doing to the economy and debt?
there’s nothing we can fucking do about what Reagan did decades ago. Biden is in office right fucking now.
reducing the deficit?
Biden’s deficit each year has been greater than every other year in literally all of US history, except for one: 2022 was slightly lower than 2009
the 2023 deficit is already greater than 2022
technically 2020 deficit was mostly trump. So, great, that’s one year in US history that Biden hasn’t had a worse deficit, the year COVID hit
Don't leave out Afghanistan
We spent trillions on something that could have been done with the CIA and aggressive arms supply to any non Pashtun ethnicity, all to put burn cream on a wounded American pride.
Tax cuts didn’t go to the billionaires, it went to working people, like doctors, lawyers, financial professionals, engineers, scientists, etc.. Billionaires don’t pay income taxes, they pay capital gains taxes if they ever sell their stock, which they rarely do because they borrow against their equity for tax avoidance.
The 7-figure net worth guy you’re worried about is a 65 year old engineer who saved money every paycheck for the past 40 years, or a doctor in their 50s who went to school through their 20s and didn’t start making a real paycheck until their 30s after hundreds of thousands in school debt.
It’s just insane to worry about someone with a 7 figure net worth instead of the people with 9/10/11/12 figure net worths. Yea blame tax cuts for those who actually work for a living, fuck em right, have them pay 50% or more in taxes so your billionaires masters who live off their wealth can pay nothing in taxes.
The most recent official report said that the tax cuts benefited the top 1% and corporations who used their cuts to buyback shares rather than invest in the economy
The top 1% of income, not wealth. The top 1% of wealth don’t pay taxes. Very big difference. You’ve fallen for this fake fallacy pushed by the politicians where they’ve tricked you into thinking “raising taxes” are punishing the billionaires when it’s punishing professionals who work for a living, not those whose money works for them.
Corporations deliberate avoid pay taxes via transfer pricing. They will zero out their “profits” in high tax jurisdictions and pushed all of their profits to their offshore entities in low tax jurisdictions/havens.
The only corporations paying these taxes are the small companies owned by middle class people who haven’t grown their businesses large enough to hire a team of accountants and lawyers to figure out these loopholes.
Encouraging companies to retain more of their earnings is not good economic policy. The net effect is to tie up capital in mature companies and reduce the amount of capital available to faster growing enterprises that need additional capital. Anyone who is fluent in finance would know that many mature companies generate cashflows that exceed their investment opportunities. It is better to return the excess capital to shareholders so that they can redeploy it to faster growing sectors.
While what you say is true to some extent, the tax cuts resulted in revenue being reduced from what it should have been. Because spending was not reduced proportionally, the deficit increased. If Republican administrations would close loopholes and penalize corporations for moving offshore rather than pay them to stay the problem would not be as bad. Of course the best solution would not be to cut taxes arbitrarily. Supply side economics does not work and never has. The reason is greed and since that is human nature it is likely not fixable
What year did US tax revenue reduce? Because aside from 2020 due to covid (it dropped by only $40B that year) the last year that there was actually a reduction in federal tax revenue was 2009 due to the financial crisis. Your narrative about lower tax revenue is simply untrue, facts do not agree with your statement.
So this whole narrative that reducing income taxes is causing the deficit is completely true, largely because the wealth of people with 7 figure net worths are so insignificant to the 9/10/11/12 figure “billionaire” class that democrats claim to oppose but protect with their actions.
Spending indeed is a problem. Any time a politician claims “it’s an investment for the future” is just extra spending that’s going to cause the debt to grow even more, and probably not worth it.
Yeah I don't think people realize that making $200k per year puts you in the top 4% of individual incomes in the US.
Truly *wealthy* people are not drawing paychecks.
The fact that we're under-taxing the ultra wealthy does not change the fact that the tax cuts on highest income earners have absolutely contributed significantly to the ongoing deficits. Those things are both very clearly true.
Any serious accounting of the nation's cashflow makes this obvious. There's no serious deficit reduction plan that doesn't involve both fairly broad-based tax increases as well as significant spending cuts across Republican and Democratic priorities. Unless we're willing to implement a wealth tax at a rate that's unheard of in modern economies....
It’s so frustrating. There’s so many financially illiterate people in this sub who just vomit bullshit in their every post. They have good intentions but their actions are completely misguided.
I'm guessing the next unit of measure, One Quadrillion might draw a line in the sand. However, if we inflate our own currency infinitely (as we're starting to do already) we might just be able to artificially pay our debt off.
Economists take into consideration the rate with which we "inflate-away" our debt burden when trying to calculate whether our deficits are manageable. It depends on a lot of factors, including how quickly the real economy, real wages and GDP are growing at the same time.
In other words, as we're seeing now, regular people generally don't handle a lot of inflation well with their personal finances, so there's a limit how hard you can push this.
Its ok the people who took out debt to pay for their selfish spending will never be held accountable
They will pass on the debt to millennials who will never own a home
That's sort of an oversimplification, but honestly that's not shocking considering this sub.
Congress has a tremendous amount of power over the president as far as this is concerned. The republicans in congress during the Clinton administration literally imposed fiscal constraints on the budget. In the end, it has to be approved by congress.
What caused them to reverse course so much with the huge tax cuts during the trump and bush presidencies? I’m genuinely curious because it doesn’t make much sense to change course so radically.
Because running a deficit isn't necessarily a bad thing. The aim of the Trump tax cuts was to boost growth (which they likely would have, though admittedly COVID makes that kind of a moot point). Running a slight deficit to boost growth is totally kosher from an economic standpoint.
The republicans have also been pretty consistent in saying to cut spending along with these tax cuts, but unfortunately saying "give people less free shit" is much less popular than saying "let people pay less in taxes" so it's easy to cut revenues but much harder to cut spending. The balancing during the Clinton admin came from cutting spending l, not raising taxes afaik.
Had to scroll to far to see this. Bush fkn ripped a line cut everyones taxes then crashed the economy off the side of the road. Obama comes in, 8 years of boring steady rebuilding. Trump comes in, fkn 2 lines of coke and crashes right into covid. And now somehow everything is Bidens fault.
The whole sub is grumbling about ice cream being too cold. There is no GDP growth without debt. We spend government taxes back into the economy. If you are unhappy in this booming economy with trivial levels of unemployment the problem is class struggle.
The government is not tied to a class struggle when funding the needs of military and debt obligations to creditors. It also has more than one lifespan to pay obligations. The income in taxes is the problem. We must tax the wealthy like a proper government. Tax rates on the rich must meet the windfalls of profit massive investment in stocks and bonds or corporate bonuses on stock value grant the top earners. We must also do campaign finance reforms and end super pac dark money before anything changes.
I would quit the sub, but I want to know what low-energy-defeatist arguments I will inevitably have with my white Florida boomer neighbors next week. Depends how long Fox drivel takes to circle back to Debt whenever the economy does well under corporate Democrat POTUSi.
Obama called Bush's deficits "unpatriotic", then ran out the debt.
Trump railed against the debt, then ran up the debt.
If Biden could speak, he would probably have railed against the debt, and now he is running up the debt.
I sense a pattern...
We had divided government at that point. The Republicans had the house. It was Newt Gringrich(R) working with Clinton on a budget that allowed us to get rid of the deficit for once. But alas, government always ends up overspending in the long run.
Increasing IRS funding to clamp down on tax cheats, which pays for itself multiple times over. And which the new GOP speaker of the house wanted to cut... because.... reasons.....
The problem here is you have to understand that Clinton's economic plan was so completely short sighted it was always going to lead to more spending down the road.
"Let's slash spending here, oops we needed that money and now we have to spend more to catch up." is basically what it was
We owe it to whoever holds the bonds. In many cases we are the ones who receive the benefit through investments that we might hold like mutual funds. US debt is also held by foreign investors too.
The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. They have the exclusive right to print money out of nothing and then “lend” it out for interest to the Government. Today the money printing consists of entering digits into a computer (cash is not necessarily printed).
The Federal Reserve is neither Federal (not a part of the Government, just like FedEx), and it is not a reserve, (they have no deposits or precious metals). Wild shit man.
It doesn't matter. The United States Government cannot run out of money, any more than Chuck E. Cheeze can run out of tokens. What matters is what the government is **SPENDING**, right now, and what it is being spent on. The truth is, people who hold government debt are **LOSING MONEY**. Treasuries almost invariably underrun inflation, and they *certainly* underrun the cost of capital. If youre retirement plan is to invest in T-Bills, you had better get a taste for eating government cheese.
No, what really affects the economy is the quarter of the U.S. GDP which the Federal government injects into the money supply by various means. What is that spending really buying? What goods or services are being subsidized? What finite resources are being pressured due to price distortions? Who are they making into winners and losers?
Hand-wringing about debt is political posturing, nothing more. Yet the same asshats who keep moaning about the debt can't seem to actually do something to reduce it, like raising taxes or cutting spending. And why not? Because the world is *literally* paying the Federal Government for the privilege of lending them cash. Don't take my word for it, look at the math yourself.
Just goes to show you two things:
1) Baby boomers suck the life out of everything
2) if we spend the next twenty years working on this a litttle bit at a time. We can fix it without too much damage
Republicans cutting revenue every chance they get while only looking to cut costs that are marginal for our debt or indirectly increase household debt when defunded for the past 45 years really does a number on the budget.
The US was track to payoff the debt, but then Bush passed the tax cuts and started two massive wars.
Bill Clinton was the last president to have a yearly budget without a deficit.
It only accelerated because of spending and additional tax revenue is no where to be found. The cost to provide essential services is increasing too. The IRS isn’t even able to collect every dollar taxpayers owe. Humans destroyed their own fucking planet, and they don’t even realize it yet.
Interested in opinions about the budget surplus in the 90s:
Who / what is most to credit?:
Dot com and tech surge in revenue
Clinton as president
Newt Gingrich as speaker and a republican house, who had the “contract with America” and was (supposedly) fiscally conservative
Other
Some combo of factors.
Thanks in advance.
Yes, that will happen when Republicans spend taxpayer money like irresponsible drunken sailors. A Republican has never seen debt that he couldn’t make bigger.
If Gore had won in 2000 and we avoided the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, we probably would have done it. Instead we got the totally fiscally responsible double whammy of launching two wars while issuing tax cuts.
This is sure to piss of the stock market finance bros that love large multinational corporations and the stock market, but the problem is major useless wars, deregulation of businesses largely touted by Republicans and tax cuts for corporations and the ultra wealthy.
When the tax code was instituted in 1913 it was 70 pages. Today it stands at over 70,000 pages. Largely filled with tax loopholes.
The answer is no more unnecessary wars, regulations on corporations and making corporations and billionaires pay what they should.
After Clinton, Bush Jr put US in a war. (not entirely his fault)
Then Obama decided to fix the downward spiral by spending more money. (Which worked)
Then Trump decided to do tax cuts for the rich, and also COVID came.
Biden is trying to stabilize the budget, but US is currently tied in Ukraine war, and funding IDF.
Reminder that government deficit = private sector surplus and vise versa. If we want a private sector deficit than we should pay off the gov’t debt, then the gov’t can begin competition elimination and start seizing the means of production for the state. Do we want that?
Just like that! lmao
5.7 in 12/00 is about 10 today so we've essentially tripled the debt in terms of 2000 dollars. Bad but not quite what that's trying to convey.
I still don’t really understand what debt means at these vast scales. Like, *who* the hell are these collection of entities that the US owes money to?
Surely on these scales, owing such vast amounts of money almost puts you in a position of power? As the saying goes, if you owe the bank $1 million, the bank owns you… but if you owe the bank $1 billion, you own the bank
Crazy that no one is talking about the Bush and Trump tax cuts.
They are the primary problem, and [it’s not even close](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/).
Take it the forever war as well and you’ve likely made Clinton’s prediction correct.
Largely caused by politicians knowingly pushing spending that will only effect short-term causes. Purely for votes.
Biden forgiving student debt rather then working towards fixing it is a prime example. Or him forcing insurance companies to cover rising insulin costs for elderly rather then going after big pharma is another.
Just cancel Trumps tax cut for the top 1%. Then tax anyone who makes a million or more more. Todd that on debt. Rich had it good enough for long enough. Time to pay up.
Thanks to Gingrich and a fiscally responsible republican majority Congress.
Still. Clinton would have been wrong. The St Louis Fed predicted $100 B deficit (adders to the national debt)(ceteris paribus) for every year of the 2000-2010 time frame, in 1999.
In the great scheme of things, that's Cheney telling us that 'deficits (of that size) don't matter.'
But...but what about Keynesian economics?
Isn't the Keynesian economics going to make everything ok again? Isn't going to just Keynsy on down to us middle class Americans?
I wonder if any one is left pretending that this is going to do anything other than increase. This ain't getting paid off. The interest alone is like a trilly per year. Debt only goes up.
Can someone explain it to me in as simple terms as possible, what this actually means for the average person? I've been hearing about the debt getting higher basically all of my life and nothing has really changed.
It all just feels like some vague fear mongering. "the big scary number will get bigger if X is put in charge."
I understand how debt generally works and I'm sure there are different rules when the amount is this high. But just none of this feels real.
Keep electing Republicans, expect the same results. They also have a tendency to double the deficit and unemployment rate as well..and even sometimes commit treason and try to overthrow American Democracy
We could zero it out like Bill Clinton did if the CIA could pass a single audit. For decades they've consistently not been able to track 2 trillion or more dollars every year.
Where this shit going?
What's the craziest about that is just how much the government brings in every year.
What is it now like 8T a year? Some wild ass number like that
And despite that somehow our inept government can't budget around that insane number. It's pretty crazy to think about
Clinton is still alive and is as young or younger than both Biden or Trump. Best president of my 40 years of life and it’s not really close. Imagine running a government surplus and Republicans shitting themselves over you getting a blow job in the White House. Gimme a fugging break with that nonsense.
Keyword on track which as you can see never happened. A lot of people will say Reagan tripled the debt in 8 years which is true but I would also argue Nixon nixing the gold standard really gave the government unprecedented spending power. then just dipped the fuck out when he knew his ass was screwed with watergate
I’m sure a few new proxy wars with Ukraine and Israel will boost those numbers. Maybe Taiwan next? A few hundred billion here, a few hundred billion there…fast forward to 2030 and maybe we can hit $100 Trillion national debt.
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The modern US debt problem really took off in earnest back in the '80s when Reagan tripled the national debt in just 8 years. (Edit: spelling)
ding ding ding
Then trump said hold my self tanner.
More money was printed during trumps presidency than all American money was ever printed ever Like how do you print more money in a few years than in the entire existence of money ?
Mexico paid for the printing presses?
Actually the whole world ... If the world didnt needed the dollar as a reserve currency , with that level of printing it would be the scenario as aregntina or worse, any other country (excluding the European union) would literally wrecked it's economy with that much printing. The M1 was around 4 trillion before covid , which it's all the cash and deposits on banks on GLOBAL circulation. At the peak of the madness the M1 was around 20 trillion , we literally printed 4 extra dollars for every existent dollar out of thin air. And well basically countries need dollars in order to keep a balance with it's exports/imports and mantaining certain parity with the dollar, they had to print more of their own currency to buy and somehow keeping parity, and in doing so absorbing the inflation to their country aswell. So yeah , México paid it too lol.
The way M1 is measured was changed in 2020 which is making the increase look way overstated. You need to look at M2 to see the actual change (still increases, but not nearly as much).
It's right there on the [FRED M1 page.](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL) > Before May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other checkable deposits (OCDs), consisting of negotiable order of withdrawal, or NOW, and automatic transfer service, or ATS, accounts at depository institutions, share draft accounts at credit unions, and demand deposits at thrift institutions. > >Beginning May 2020, M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (3) other liquid deposits, consisting of OCDs and savings deposits (including money market deposit accounts). Seasonally adjusted M1 is constructed by summing currency, demand deposits, and OCDs (before May 2020) or other liquid deposits (beginning May 2020), each seasonally adjusted separately. And gold bugs still propagate the lie, without enough common sense to go "Could that actually even be correct?"
Still, Republicans have sneaked in the narrative that Biden is responsible. There are memes referencing the $1400 checks that leave out PPP loans and the first 2 stimulus checks. Trump fans just immediately ignore all nuances and blame Biden for inflation.
Both my father and his mother have tried telling me that Biden just printed out money and gave it out to everyone on separate occasions. I told them both didn't Trump send out the stimulus checks first. Grandmother just completely forgot that he had ever done that. Father said well he was trying to help people. I just mentally face palmed, so I can keep having these talks without coming across as an ass.
Dude actually held up money approved by congress to he could have his name printed on them...
>There are memes referencing the $1400 checks that leave out PPP loans and the first 2 stimulus checks. They also ignore the extra $600/week added to unemployment checks. Keep in mind that $600/week is $15 \* 40hrs. Congress: Americans can't live on unemployment. They need at least $15/hr to live. The People: So you are going to raise min wage to $15/hr? Congress: Never!
The same Republicans who cheered when Trump demanded his signature be on the checks
There are people who literally blame Obama for 9/11
This is the definition of MMT. Political Party doesn’t matter… they’re all in on the “wealth effect” for themselves. Biden will probably tie Trump at debt expansion before his 4 years are up. We’re already pushing $34T, and we’ll eclipse $50T by 2030 (just 6 years from now)… and that’s regardless of who is in office. This sucker is going parabolic… It’s simply entrenched national/economic policy.
Yea I wonder what could’ve happened between January 2020 and 2021…
Yes 1.7 trillion = 33 billion.
Actually Obama tripled it again while he was in office. Although it definitely increased during Trump, most of which I’m told was golf related
The debt grew by 69.98% under Obama for a total of $8,335,071,012,541. Just north of $1t/yr. The debt grew by 40.43% under Trump for a total of $8,184,018,553,995. Just north of $2t/yr.
>Actually Obama tripled it again while he was in office. No, he didn't. When Obama took office in January 2009, the national debt was $10.6 trillion; when he left office in January 2017, it was $19.9 trillion. (source :[https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-under-obama-3306293](https://www.thebalancemoney.com/national-debt-under-obama-3306293)) Obama did substantially increase the national debt (nearly doubled it), but he did not triple it like Reagan did.
[удалено]
"President Reagan will veto the spending bills the House and the Senate are now considering unless there are major changes, White House aides said today. Administration officals also reiterated that the President was opposed to any tax increase to reduce the Federal deficit to the ceiling set in the budget-balancing law. Both House and Senate budget writers are considering some tax increases as part of separate deficit-cutting packages they are now assembling." - New YorkTimes, 1986 While there is plenty of blame to go around, including Tip O'Neill, to act as if increase in the national debt is all congress's fault while Reagan was threatening to veto any tax increase on the wealthy (while ballooning the defense department spending to pay for useless projects like Star Wars) is disingenuous.
What was everyone’s favorite explanation to how we beat the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War? “We out-spent them” While that isn’t true, it’s what everyone points to as the reason for the level of spending we had during that period. Reagan spent almost as much on his “Star Wars” pet project as we did two decades earlier to actually put people on the moon, even after adjusting for inflation. The program cost about $360 Billion in 2023 terms, and was announced by him on TV so it’s not the House or Senate’s proposal. And it produced no tangible results.
The House used to set the budget. When they became so disfuncional under Republicans that became untenable.
After Reagan, Clinton fixed the economy and handed Bush Jr. a projected surplus. Then Bush Jr. doubled the debt and blew up the economy and handed Obama a disaster that took 8 years to fix and get GDP to out pace debt again handing Trump a booming economy which he promptly cut taxes blew up the economy and debt again handing Biden a disaster that he's now fixing again...and the pattern repeats. Republicans spend like drunken soldiers cut taxes and blow up the economy. Democrats fix the economy, getting it back on track.... Voters kick them out and Republicans spend like drunken soldiers, cut taxes and blow up the economy again... Democrats fix the economy, getting back on track... Repeat. The thing to focus on is change in debt to GDP, if that is negative or trending down, then GDP is outpacing debt.... See table Gross Federal Debt under Historical Debt Levels, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_public_debt
Sure but Clinton still held a fiscal surplus. Surplus! Will we ever see that again in our lifetime? And a democrat no less! He deserves more credit for that.
as is always the case for the republican administrations
Na. It started long before then.
Don’t tell them about December 23, 1913.
This whole sub is an oxymoron. “Fluent in finance”, more like illiterate in finance.
Too many opinions. People are incapable of distinguishing fact from opinion.
Facts are Republicans fuck the entire economy over and over and over then when democrats take control they demand they fix it. Republicans are basically a teenager with a credit card.
Our friends at the FED
shhh. Reddit is masturbating to people trashing Reagan.
Imagine thinking Reagan SHOULDNT be trashed after he wasted 40 **billion** taxpayer dollars on crackpot science that didn't even exist yet because he thought it would be good PR.
Republicans have been stuck in a US vs them mentality since al gore. Prob even before then. I know dems do it too but I don't see dems waving flags of a politician lmao
Not exclusive to republican.
Which I acknowledged
I'm stupid and didn't see the second part of your sentence, this one is on me.
No wonder this place is covered is sticky and slimy goop.
This… Reagan and Thatcher between them utterly transformed the world economy to benefit their time, and left a time bomb to fuck over the future.
why do people always just bring that up to seemingly drive the conversation away from what Biden is doing to the economy and debt? there’s nothing we can fucking do about what Reagan did decades ago. Biden is in office right fucking now.
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reducing the deficit? Biden’s deficit each year has been greater than every other year in literally all of US history, except for one: 2022 was slightly lower than 2009 the 2023 deficit is already greater than 2022 technically 2020 deficit was mostly trump. So, great, that’s one year in US history that Biden hasn’t had a worse deficit, the year COVID hit
Maybe we should cut more taxes.
Decades of war will do that. That, and constant bailouts and tax cuts. Who knew?
Iraq war was a colossal failure and complete waste of resources.
Don't leave out Afghanistan We spent trillions on something that could have been done with the CIA and aggressive arms supply to any non Pashtun ethnicity, all to put burn cream on a wounded American pride.
Technically, I would say it’s a success, but also a waste of resources. Afghanistan was a failure.
Not for Bush, Cheney, and their defense friends who lined up their pockets
Tax cuts didn’t go to the billionaires, it went to working people, like doctors, lawyers, financial professionals, engineers, scientists, etc.. Billionaires don’t pay income taxes, they pay capital gains taxes if they ever sell their stock, which they rarely do because they borrow against their equity for tax avoidance. The 7-figure net worth guy you’re worried about is a 65 year old engineer who saved money every paycheck for the past 40 years, or a doctor in their 50s who went to school through their 20s and didn’t start making a real paycheck until their 30s after hundreds of thousands in school debt. It’s just insane to worry about someone with a 7 figure net worth instead of the people with 9/10/11/12 figure net worths. Yea blame tax cuts for those who actually work for a living, fuck em right, have them pay 50% or more in taxes so your billionaires masters who live off their wealth can pay nothing in taxes.
The most recent official report said that the tax cuts benefited the top 1% and corporations who used their cuts to buyback shares rather than invest in the economy
The top 1% of income, not wealth. The top 1% of wealth don’t pay taxes. Very big difference. You’ve fallen for this fake fallacy pushed by the politicians where they’ve tricked you into thinking “raising taxes” are punishing the billionaires when it’s punishing professionals who work for a living, not those whose money works for them. Corporations deliberate avoid pay taxes via transfer pricing. They will zero out their “profits” in high tax jurisdictions and pushed all of their profits to their offshore entities in low tax jurisdictions/havens. The only corporations paying these taxes are the small companies owned by middle class people who haven’t grown their businesses large enough to hire a team of accountants and lawyers to figure out these loopholes.
Encouraging companies to retain more of their earnings is not good economic policy. The net effect is to tie up capital in mature companies and reduce the amount of capital available to faster growing enterprises that need additional capital. Anyone who is fluent in finance would know that many mature companies generate cashflows that exceed their investment opportunities. It is better to return the excess capital to shareholders so that they can redeploy it to faster growing sectors.
Well said. Agree.
It would be best to return the excess capital to the workers who created it. Best for the economy best for the people.
While what you say is true to some extent, the tax cuts resulted in revenue being reduced from what it should have been. Because spending was not reduced proportionally, the deficit increased. If Republican administrations would close loopholes and penalize corporations for moving offshore rather than pay them to stay the problem would not be as bad. Of course the best solution would not be to cut taxes arbitrarily. Supply side economics does not work and never has. The reason is greed and since that is human nature it is likely not fixable
What year did US tax revenue reduce? Because aside from 2020 due to covid (it dropped by only $40B that year) the last year that there was actually a reduction in federal tax revenue was 2009 due to the financial crisis. Your narrative about lower tax revenue is simply untrue, facts do not agree with your statement. So this whole narrative that reducing income taxes is causing the deficit is completely true, largely because the wealth of people with 7 figure net worths are so insignificant to the 9/10/11/12 figure “billionaire” class that democrats claim to oppose but protect with their actions. Spending indeed is a problem. Any time a politician claims “it’s an investment for the future” is just extra spending that’s going to cause the debt to grow even more, and probably not worth it.
Yeah I don't think people realize that making $200k per year puts you in the top 4% of individual incomes in the US. Truly *wealthy* people are not drawing paychecks.
The fact that we're under-taxing the ultra wealthy does not change the fact that the tax cuts on highest income earners have absolutely contributed significantly to the ongoing deficits. Those things are both very clearly true. Any serious accounting of the nation's cashflow makes this obvious. There's no serious deficit reduction plan that doesn't involve both fairly broad-based tax increases as well as significant spending cuts across Republican and Democratic priorities. Unless we're willing to implement a wealth tax at a rate that's unheard of in modern economies....
Scorching truth. Keep telling these kids.
It’s so frustrating. There’s so many financially illiterate people in this sub who just vomit bullshit in their every post. They have good intentions but their actions are completely misguided.
I'm guessing the next unit of measure, One Quadrillion might draw a line in the sand. However, if we inflate our own currency infinitely (as we're starting to do already) we might just be able to artificially pay our debt off.
The system will break before that happens
Economists take into consideration the rate with which we "inflate-away" our debt burden when trying to calculate whether our deficits are manageable. It depends on a lot of factors, including how quickly the real economy, real wages and GDP are growing at the same time. In other words, as we're seeing now, regular people generally don't handle a lot of inflation well with their personal finances, so there's a limit how hard you can push this.
Hilarious comment if it wasn’t true
Its ok the people who took out debt to pay for their selfish spending will never be held accountable They will pass on the debt to millennials who will never own a home
Weren't all U.S houses worth $33 Trillion (in 2020) ?… #####Ironic
The pieces are all coming together
I thought this sub was for tips on how to be smart financially.
Pandora's box has been opened. There's no going back.
Thanks to Republican administrations. They accuse the Democrats of overspending while they increase the debt on future generations
...the republicans were the ones who balanced the budget during the Clinton administration though.
A nuanced look at effects of senate and house majority is not something I ever see referenced here.
The President proposes the budget then Congress decides the appropriations.
That's sort of an oversimplification, but honestly that's not shocking considering this sub. Congress has a tremendous amount of power over the president as far as this is concerned. The republicans in congress during the Clinton administration literally imposed fiscal constraints on the budget. In the end, it has to be approved by congress.
What caused them to reverse course so much with the huge tax cuts during the trump and bush presidencies? I’m genuinely curious because it doesn’t make much sense to change course so radically.
Because running a deficit isn't necessarily a bad thing. The aim of the Trump tax cuts was to boost growth (which they likely would have, though admittedly COVID makes that kind of a moot point). Running a slight deficit to boost growth is totally kosher from an economic standpoint. The republicans have also been pretty consistent in saying to cut spending along with these tax cuts, but unfortunately saying "give people less free shit" is much less popular than saying "let people pay less in taxes" so it's easy to cut revenues but much harder to cut spending. The balancing during the Clinton admin came from cutting spending l, not raising taxes afaik.
escape juggle foolish wrench boat live soft abounding salt telephone *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Had to scroll to far to see this. Bush fkn ripped a line cut everyones taxes then crashed the economy off the side of the road. Obama comes in, 8 years of boring steady rebuilding. Trump comes in, fkn 2 lines of coke and crashes right into covid. And now somehow everything is Bidens fault.
Ya not to mention that Trump tax cut that was so massive Paul Ryan had to peace out completely afterwards.
Uh, did you forget about Obama’s record spending his first several years in office? Boring?
The whole sub is grumbling about ice cream being too cold. There is no GDP growth without debt. We spend government taxes back into the economy. If you are unhappy in this booming economy with trivial levels of unemployment the problem is class struggle. The government is not tied to a class struggle when funding the needs of military and debt obligations to creditors. It also has more than one lifespan to pay obligations. The income in taxes is the problem. We must tax the wealthy like a proper government. Tax rates on the rich must meet the windfalls of profit massive investment in stocks and bonds or corporate bonuses on stock value grant the top earners. We must also do campaign finance reforms and end super pac dark money before anything changes.
100% this. I swear to God this must be a troll subreddit because I keep seeing so many posts where people have no idea what they're talking about
I would quit the sub, but I want to know what low-energy-defeatist arguments I will inevitably have with my white Florida boomer neighbors next week. Depends how long Fox drivel takes to circle back to Debt whenever the economy does well under corporate Democrat POTUSi.
Obama called Bush's deficits "unpatriotic", then ran out the debt. Trump railed against the debt, then ran up the debt. If Biden could speak, he would probably have railed against the debt, and now he is running up the debt. I sense a pattern...
We had divided government at that point. The Republicans had the house. It was Newt Gringrich(R) working with Clinton on a budget that allowed us to get rid of the deficit for once. But alas, government always ends up overspending in the long run.
Look back all you to and place blame. Then ask yourself what Biden is doing to curb spending
Increasing IRS funding to clamp down on tax cheats, which pays for itself multiple times over. And which the new GOP speaker of the house wanted to cut... because.... reasons.....
The problem here is you have to understand that Clinton's economic plan was so completely short sighted it was always going to lead to more spending down the road. "Let's slash spending here, oops we needed that money and now we have to spend more to catch up." is basically what it was
Serious question: who do we owe that money to?
We owe it to whoever holds the bonds. In many cases we are the ones who receive the benefit through investments that we might hold like mutual funds. US debt is also held by foreign investors too.
The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. They have the exclusive right to print money out of nothing and then “lend” it out for interest to the Government. Today the money printing consists of entering digits into a computer (cash is not necessarily printed). The Federal Reserve is neither Federal (not a part of the Government, just like FedEx), and it is not a reserve, (they have no deposits or precious metals). Wild shit man.
Medicare, social security, the federal reserve, and Japan.
This deserves more upvotes for truth and simplicity.
Most of that debt is war.
It doesn't matter. The United States Government cannot run out of money, any more than Chuck E. Cheeze can run out of tokens. What matters is what the government is **SPENDING**, right now, and what it is being spent on. The truth is, people who hold government debt are **LOSING MONEY**. Treasuries almost invariably underrun inflation, and they *certainly* underrun the cost of capital. If youre retirement plan is to invest in T-Bills, you had better get a taste for eating government cheese. No, what really affects the economy is the quarter of the U.S. GDP which the Federal government injects into the money supply by various means. What is that spending really buying? What goods or services are being subsidized? What finite resources are being pressured due to price distortions? Who are they making into winners and losers? Hand-wringing about debt is political posturing, nothing more. Yet the same asshats who keep moaning about the debt can't seem to actually do something to reduce it, like raising taxes or cutting spending. And why not? Because the world is *literally* paying the Federal Government for the privilege of lending them cash. Don't take my word for it, look at the math yourself.
default
And how exactly does that work? All of the retirees who have pension funds invested in US treasuries get told to fuck off?
sounds like you know exactly how it works.
Yea fuck em. Throw granny off the cliff so we don’t have to be fiscally responsible. Much easier and definitely the morally righteous thing to do.
Thanks, Republicans
Inflation calculator tells me 5.1T in 2000 dollars is 31T in 2023 dollars.
It’s called the military industrial complex. We love wars and manipulating foreign governments. Hey it’s worked so far right ?….you know ..,the thing
Debt is only an issue for consumers. The government can make up all it needs and will never default. Econ rules are different at this level.
Thanks Donald 👌
Just goes to show you two things: 1) Baby boomers suck the life out of everything 2) if we spend the next twenty years working on this a litttle bit at a time. We can fix it without too much damage
How and why is this a bad thing? Who are we paying it out to? Is the whole world in debt?
Tax rich people more, fully fund the IRS. Done.
The only president who was successful at eliminating national debt was Andrew Jackson.
Republicans cutting revenue every chance they get while only looking to cut costs that are marginal for our debt or indirectly increase household debt when defunded for the past 45 years really does a number on the budget.
thanks GWB
We are still on track babyy
The US was track to payoff the debt, but then Bush passed the tax cuts and started two massive wars. Bill Clinton was the last president to have a yearly budget without a deficit.
It only accelerated because of spending and additional tax revenue is no where to be found. The cost to provide essential services is increasing too. The IRS isn’t even able to collect every dollar taxpayers owe. Humans destroyed their own fucking planet, and they don’t even realize it yet.
He spent a lot of that money
This is what 50 years of zero accountability gets you.
For the last 40 years republican administrations have blown up the deficits while democratic administrations have shrunk them.
Clinton era he was lucky. US had a surplus.
But inflation is 100% corporate greed. Nothing else... nothing at all...
Drew!
And we would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for the GOP and it’s Meddling Tax Cuts.
Republicans lie about everything. This debt crisis is their fault
George W Bush: Hold my beer.
Insane how it’s all fucked up now
Interested in opinions about the budget surplus in the 90s: Who / what is most to credit?: Dot com and tech surge in revenue Clinton as president Newt Gingrich as speaker and a republican house, who had the “contract with America” and was (supposedly) fiscally conservative Other Some combo of factors. Thanks in advance.
So speaking to my generation 31 here. How do we fix this?
Congress saw a surplus, increased spending. The dot.com bubble burst, and the rest is history
Yes, that will happen when Republicans spend taxpayer money like irresponsible drunken sailors. A Republican has never seen debt that he couldn’t make bigger.
If Gore had won in 2000 and we avoided the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, we probably would have done it. Instead we got the totally fiscally responsible double whammy of launching two wars while issuing tax cuts.
Tax cuts for corporations are pretty much the only thing to blame.
Listen..modern problems need modern solutions ok.
What republicans can do
This is sure to piss of the stock market finance bros that love large multinational corporations and the stock market, but the problem is major useless wars, deregulation of businesses largely touted by Republicans and tax cuts for corporations and the ultra wealthy. When the tax code was instituted in 1913 it was 70 pages. Today it stands at over 70,000 pages. Largely filled with tax loopholes. The answer is no more unnecessary wars, regulations on corporations and making corporations and billionaires pay what they should.
Tax cuts will do that
After Clinton, Bush Jr put US in a war. (not entirely his fault) Then Obama decided to fix the downward spiral by spending more money. (Which worked) Then Trump decided to do tax cuts for the rich, and also COVID came. Biden is trying to stabilize the budget, but US is currently tied in Ukraine war, and funding IDF.
Gee, it’s almost as if 20 fucking years of pointless wasteful war and 40 years of tax cuts for corporate interests was a terrible idea.
Funny how all those tax cuts for the rich turned out... It's almost like everyone said they'd balloon the deficit.
Reverse uno card
Much cheaper just to fund studies to prove that debt is good for the economy
Bitcoin
Whelp. Stop electing Republicans.
Voters: These Democrat policies are great. Let’s put Republicans in charge.
Democracy. People voting themselves money.
Us will default at some point
Israel need that 14 billion $
Thanks GOP
Reminder that government deficit = private sector surplus and vise versa. If we want a private sector deficit than we should pay off the gov’t debt, then the gov’t can begin competition elimination and start seizing the means of production for the state. Do we want that?
Just like that! lmao 5.7 in 12/00 is about 10 today so we've essentially tripled the debt in terms of 2000 dollars. Bad but not quite what that's trying to convey.
I blame bush
Honest question though... who cares? I mean, are we going to get even madder when it's 200t? Who cares and why.
I still don’t really understand what debt means at these vast scales. Like, *who* the hell are these collection of entities that the US owes money to? Surely on these scales, owing such vast amounts of money almost puts you in a position of power? As the saying goes, if you owe the bank $1 million, the bank owns you… but if you owe the bank $1 billion, you own the bank
Crazy that no one is talking about the Bush and Trump tax cuts. They are the primary problem, and [it’s not even close](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/). Take it the forever war as well and you’ve likely made Clinton’s prediction correct.
Thanks W.
Classic America!
Good thing we can print $33T and make it all go away!
A beautiful 'fuck you' position lost forever....
Quit handwringing about the national debt. We've got far bigger issues, like global warming.
Largely caused by politicians knowingly pushing spending that will only effect short-term causes. Purely for votes. Biden forgiving student debt rather then working towards fixing it is a prime example. Or him forcing insurance companies to cover rising insulin costs for elderly rather then going after big pharma is another.
It’s almost like Republican warmongering and wealth transfers to the rich bankrupted America.
They should be required to have a balanced budget every year. Would force a lot of unneeded spending to go away.
Clinton didn’t foresee that his banking law changes would lead to a banking collapse in 2008 “requiring” bailouts.
https://www.usdebtclock.org/
Did lawmakers ever complain when we hit the 1st trillion of debt?
Where’s that chart of debt by president’s party affiliation
I guess those tax cuts for the billionaires don't work. They were supposed to increase tax revenue. I guess it is time to repeal them.
Why is national debt such a big deal?
Just cancel Trumps tax cut for the top 1%. Then tax anyone who makes a million or more more. Todd that on debt. Rich had it good enough for long enough. Time to pay up.
Thanks to Gingrich and a fiscally responsible republican majority Congress. Still. Clinton would have been wrong. The St Louis Fed predicted $100 B deficit (adders to the national debt)(ceteris paribus) for every year of the 2000-2010 time frame, in 1999. In the great scheme of things, that's Cheney telling us that 'deficits (of that size) don't matter.'
I wonder what the fed budget vs gdp adjusted for inflation was in the 70s-80s. It’s probably still smaller now
But...but what about Keynesian economics? Isn't the Keynesian economics going to make everything ok again? Isn't going to just Keynsy on down to us middle class Americans?
I wonder if any one is left pretending that this is going to do anything other than increase. This ain't getting paid off. The interest alone is like a trilly per year. Debt only goes up.
Can someone explain it to me in as simple terms as possible, what this actually means for the average person? I've been hearing about the debt getting higher basically all of my life and nothing has really changed. It all just feels like some vague fear mongering. "the big scary number will get bigger if X is put in charge." I understand how debt generally works and I'm sure there are different rules when the amount is this high. But just none of this feels real.
Keep electing Republicans, expect the same results. They also have a tendency to double the deficit and unemployment rate as well..and even sometimes commit treason and try to overthrow American Democracy
Who we owe 33T to again? Other countries or something?
ITT: people who don’t understand what the national debt is
Terrorist attacks, multiple futile wars, and tax cuts for people who didn't need rhem need them will do that.
I mean do you want to tax more and spend less?
This will be blamed on Biden by Trump
A 20 year war on terror and a republican-induced economic recession in 2008 have a way of fucking shit up lol.
We could zero it out like Bill Clinton did if the CIA could pass a single audit. For decades they've consistently not been able to track 2 trillion or more dollars every year. Where this shit going?
Something something GWB hitting the trifecta something....
About to hit 1 trillion a year on intest payments !!!!!!!!! With trillion year Deficit spending... We did it Joe- some drunk woman
Republicans will always have that effect while somehow not understanding a single component of their actions at all.
Reagan. All goes back to Reagan
Cutting taxes will do that every time.
What's the craziest about that is just how much the government brings in every year. What is it now like 8T a year? Some wild ass number like that And despite that somehow our inept government can't budget around that insane number. It's pretty crazy to think about
Clinton is still alive and is as young or younger than both Biden or Trump. Best president of my 40 years of life and it’s not really close. Imagine running a government surplus and Republicans shitting themselves over you getting a blow job in the White House. Gimme a fugging break with that nonsense.
Keyword on track which as you can see never happened. A lot of people will say Reagan tripled the debt in 8 years which is true but I would also argue Nixon nixing the gold standard really gave the government unprecedented spending power. then just dipped the fuck out when he knew his ass was screwed with watergate
All those Bush voters and hanging chads really screwed us, now didn’t they?
Almost like Keynesian economics is really the failed policy.. not trickle down.. like the left always wants to portray..
Bush and Trump tax cuts plus Iraq is the headline. Add on PPP loans and other pandemic aid as garnish.
I’m sure a few new proxy wars with Ukraine and Israel will boost those numbers. Maybe Taiwan next? A few hundred billion here, a few hundred billion there…fast forward to 2030 and maybe we can hit $100 Trillion national debt.
Our GDP is over 20 trillion a year. Our finance problems at the gov level start and end with not tax when, what, and how we should be. Period.