Back on Jan. 31 I asked if the debt ceiling was constitutional. With the possibility of default as early as next month, that question and today’s question look like they may be answered.
Here are a couple of articles on the history of debt and default.
My reading is that it is not constitutional. This is money already spent, and we are legally obligated to pay for it. The “debt ceiling” needs to be repealed. Should we spend less money? Sure (we could start with the defense budget). But haggling over paying the credit card bill over future spending is stupid.
How about stop giving money to other countries while our own citizens (especially veterans) have issues that need addressing. For instance, read today that the US gave Pakistan $500k to teach transgendered children English. Not much money in the big scheme of things, but a million here and a million there and soon we are talking about real money.
Do agree that we wasted trillions in men and materials fighting wars. Need to be much more selective with much more targeted end games.
I don’t think the question (or the answer) really matters. Even if it is against the Constitution, there needs to be a process in place by which to force a remedy of the violation - and there does not appear to be one, absent perhaps an emergency request of SCOTUS.
By definition, if defaulting is not permitted, then there are two choices:
expenditures approved by Congress that push the debt ABOVE the limit are prohibited (and thus, not to be paid YET), OR
expenditures approved by Congress that are ABOVE the limit are automatically approved as increasing the debt ceiling. After all, Congress DOES KNOW when it is approving spending ABOVE the debt ceiling it had already set…
The debt ceiling is a law created by cowards who apparently are unable to control their own behavior. Any yet we keep sending these people back to Congress time after time after time (see Einstein’s definition of insanity).
This appears to be the dictionary example of the term “Constitutional crisis.”
Yeah, except we’re still not talking about real money by government standards. And it is not a binary choice. We can easily afford both. US foreign aid isn’t a particularly large budget item. This year it went up a lot because of Ukraine, but it is usually less than 1% of the budget. And we do get some benefits in return as well, so it isn’t totally lost money.
As aside, nothing gets hate groups’ motors more revved up than the word “transgender.” So they always without fail misrepresent the issues to fuel the outrage. I’m NOT talking about you, I’m talking about your sources. I knew there had to more to the story, and sure enough there was. The money hasn’t been distributed, but eligible groups can apply for it. And it isn’t specifically for transgendered children. It is for students and teachers in general, including transgendered people.
Don’t take my word for it, read it for yourself. Reality is bit different than what the hate groups are saying.
Look we know what the issue is and what it is not. We need an industrial policy. The capital policies are crushing us.
If we cut the budget this year we have a half baked industrial policy. Does not matter if trans children in Pakistan learn English. So what?
Note in the 90s when taxes were raised the deficits fell for a while. In the otts taxes were cut and the rest is history.
Much more important than the tax rate was the money being used in the 50s and 60s to build out the industrial base. You know actually produce things.
If you are talking marginal Federal tax rates, here they are:
Historical Highest Marginal Income Tax Rates | Tax Policy Center
Perhaps a better gauge is the average tax rate, which got as low as 24.7% in 1986 and has been higher every year since then:
Historical Average Federal Tax Rates for All Households | Tax Policy Center
Then it should be easy pickings. Have to start somewhere.
I seriously doubt how much benefit the USA gets. How much has been given to the Middle East? They shout “death to the Great Satan” less enthusiastically? It is not like everything the USA sponsors has the American flag emblazoned on it nor has a statement read before the beginning of a class saying we paid for it.
We can do both. But when it comes to veterans, what is surprising is how often the party that “supports the troops” shoots down bill to help veterans. I’m a liberal. I’m all for bills and spending that helps veterans. Bring it on! They don’t always pass, and usually due to the other party voting it down.
Google is your friend.
YES. The U.S. government requires regular monitoring and reporting on how and whether assistance programs are working, and periodic evaluations of results. There is hard evidence that development and humanitarian programs produce considerable results, less so for programs driven for foreign policy and security purposes. While U.S. assistance is by no means the sole driver, the record of global development results is impressive. These results include:
Extreme poverty has fallen dramatically over the past 30 years—from 1.9 billion people (36 percent of the world’s population) in 1990 to 592 million (8 percent) in 2019.
Maternal, infant, and child mortality rates have been cut in half.
Life expectancy globally rose from 65 years in 1990 to 72 in 2017.
Smallpox has been defeated; polio eliminated in all but two countries; and deaths from malaria cut in half from 2000 to 2017.
The U.S. PEPFAR program has saved 17 million lives from HIV/AIDS and enabled 2.4 million babies to be born HIV-free.
Assistance programs can promote national economic progress and stability, which can make it more viable for citizens to remain at home rather than migrate to other countries.
And it should be obvious to anyone that the less problems, the less social unrest there is externally, the less of a problem that will be for us.
@TMFMurph The point of the chart is until the early 1980s we had industrial policies. I am not saying the 1970s we good but the GDP was often much better in the 70s than any time since.
The point is we are going back to a fiscal policy for industrialization.
I do not need to argue for it. If you are against it that would be odd.
Leap,
What the chart you showed me is that we are incurring debt at about the same rate (% of GDP) that we did during WWII!
To say that this is due to implementing an “industrial policy” is simply not the true picture: it is primarily due to an increase in social spending for decades, plus those pandemic-related in 2020-2022.
The 800-pound gorilla in the room has been the growth of social spending. Whether that is good or bad is in the eye of the beholder, but your chart has not been driven by our “going back to an industrial policy”.
If “industrial policy” means that we make more in America versus being dependent upon foreign production, I am all for it, but the growth in the chart you posted has little to do with the growth of spending/debt as a % of GDP.
Cheers!
Murph
Murph,
What to do with you?
Murph 1950 to 1980 we had a fiscal policy that induced manufacturing in the US. In other words an industrial policy. As the nation produced far more the ratio declined substantially.
In 1981 we got a capital policy. I get you do not know that. It was called supply side economics. I get you do not know what that is even though you supported it for 4 plus decades now. The debt soared. The amount of manufacturing we did in the US went down substantially. That was purposeful.
In 2022 we are now moving to an industrial policy to build out our manufacturing base. The debt to GDP ratio will fall.
The Clinton tax hike was to cut off the very fast rise in our debt ratio. There were two tax cuts by W. The deregulated banks collapsed in 2008 and the debt took off. We continued to outsource production.
Do you understand you are lied to constantly in your circles? Or worse those folks who were adamant about supply side econ did not know at all what it is. Only 6.5% of the state, local and federal budgets in aggregate are spent on social programs. Some 85% of those monies flow to the seniors. You are being lied to that welfare is the reason for the debt. You have not done due diligence to find out if you have accurate information.
Leap[quote=“Leap1, post:16, topic:91950, full:true”]
[quote=“TMFMurph, post:15, topic:91950”]
To say that this is due to implementing an “industrial policy” is simply not the true picture:
"Murph,
What to do with you?
Murph 1950 to 1980 we had a fiscal policy that induced manufacturing in the US. In other words an industrial policy. As the nation produced far more the ratio declined substantially.
In 1981 we got a capital policy. I get you do not know that. It was called supply side economics. I get you do not know what that is even though you supported it for 4 plus decades now. The debt soared. The amount of manufacturing we did in the US went down substantially. That was purposeful.
In 2022 we are now moving to an industrial policy to build out our manufacturing base. The debt to GDP ratio will fall.
The Clinton tax hike was to cut off the very fast rise in our debt ratio. There were two tax cuts by W. The deregulated banks collapsed in 2008 and the debt took off. We continued to outsource production.
Do you understand you are lied to constantly in your circles? Or worse those folks who were adamant about supply side econ did not know at all what it is. Only 6.5% of the state, local and federal budgets in aggregate are spent on social programs. Some 85% of those monies flow to the seniors. You are being lied to that welfare is the reason for the debt. You have not done due diligence to find out if you have accurate information.
[/quote]"
Leap, my question is simple: how does the chart you posted show what you state?
If your point is that our debt as a percentage of GDP since 1980 has gone up because we left our industrial policy, fine. But I do not see any substantial evidence in that chart that the percentage of debt to GDP is/will decline due to our returning to an industrial policy.
Indeed, the projections on the chart show a continued rise in debt/GDP, and my analysis of why that is, shows a combination of increased mandatory social spending (which includes Social Security and Medicare/aid and others) and increased interest on our national debt.
Federal Spending | U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data
As far as past tax cuts and increases, please note that total Federal tax receipts have risen almost every year:
U.S. Federal Tax Revenue by Year (thebalancemoney.com)
Cheers!
Murph
(as to “what to do with” me, simply communicate more clearly) 
I’m just gonna say Leap isn’t wrong.
This is the “money shot”–literally:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/BOARDDOCS/TESTIMONY/2001/20010125/default.htm
Jan 25, 2001:
“The most recent projections, granted their tentativeness, nonetheless make clear that the highly desirable goal of paying off the federal debt is in reach before the end of the decade. This is in marked contrast to the perspective of a year ago when the elimination of the debt did not appear likely until the next decade.”
The evidence is not in the chart. Never said it was.
The evidence is in the IRA and a few other acts of congress that pave the way to an industrial renaissance.
You are eating total nonsense about SS, Medicare and the interest on the debt.
Unless we spend heavily on infrastructure we have totally $crewed up our economy because of supply side economics and tax cuts.