Debt

 

Sixteen Tons

You load 16 tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

The battle over the national debt is also a  battle over the nation’s soul.

The US debt ceiling is being extended until December.  That the US budget has debt is neither good nor bad.  Charles Dickens in David Copperfield said

 “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds and six , result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”

but if those extra six pence were an investment in the future, say a college loan, a home mortgage or a car loan, that result would probably be happiness too, not misery.  While we may be in debt at a given point in time, that does not mean that we will always be in debt.  Under Republican Presidents the national debt has always increased.  Under Democratic Presidents the national debt has largely decreased.

Presidential Administration	Change in Deficit (Billions of USD)
Lydon Baines Johnson	-$8
Richard Nixon	+$9
Gerald Ford	+$48
Jimmy Carter	+$25
Ronald Reagan	+$74
George H. W. Bush	+$102
Bill Clinton	-$383
George W Bush	+$1,500
Barak Obama	-$735
Donald Trump	+3,000

Source: Boston Globe: Fast Forward Newsletter (Tuesday October 5, 2021)

Yes, the table above could be adjusted to account for inflation, but that will only change the magnitude of the numbers, not their sign.

Debt is the difference between revenue ( i.e Taxes) and spending.  If revenue is decreased (taxes are reduced), but spending stays the same or increases, then the debt increases.  All of those tax cuts do have a consequence.  Growth in the stock market only reflects  the growth of capital, not growth  of the economy.

Republican's problem over the debt is not on how big the debt is, because clearly Republicans appear to increase debt.  Their issue is over how much revenue there will be and what kind of spending there will be.  Republicans cleary want no revenue, i.e Taxes, and are at least honest about that or haven’t you been reading their lips or reading Tea Party screeds.  They also do not want the “wrong” kind of spending.  They have discovered that if there is no revenue, then there can be no spending, and if the debt is increased so much that all of the income will have to pay off the debt then there will be no “wrong” kind of spending.  If society can’t play their way, they are perfectly willing to smash all of the toys so we can't play with them either.  Wise up America and save our soul.  The argument is not over the size of the debt.  The argument is over taxes and the right kind of spending.