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The U.S. national debt reached $20 trillion for the first time ever last Friday after President Trump signed a bipartisan bill temporarily raising the nation's debt limit for three months.
While at Camp David, Mr. Trump, with the stroke of his presidential pen, increased the statutory debt last Friday by approximately $318 billion, according to the Treasury Department. Before the bill's completion, the U.S. debt was sitting around $19.84 trillion.
The legislation allowed the Treasury Department to start borrowing again immediately after several months of using "extraordinary measures" to avoid a financial default. The bill passed last Thursday 80-17 in the Senate and in the House 316-90 on Friday. Around $15 billion in emergency funding for Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts was attached to the borrowing measure.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/national-debt-hits-historic-20-trillion-mark/
[That works out to just shy of $62,000 per American. --Ed.]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @05:21PM (3 children)
The problem would be even worse on a gold standard. The inflation somewhat eats away at the debt over time.
The problem is that we're wasting too much money on tax cuts for the greedy and military spending while simultaneously investing insufficient resources in things like healthcare and education that would lead to increases in GDP that would make it easier to pay off the debt.
The debt is high, but as long as we're giving people tax cuts that are justified based upon projects about what future tax receipts are, and not bothering to reconcile it ever, we're going to run a larger and larger debt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @06:50PM (1 child)
Why? Why are we going to run a larger and larger debt? That makes no sense. At some point, the debt out paces your income and you will never recover. Why must the price of anything increase year after year when tech supposedly makes it easier/faster/cheaper to build those things? This is madness.
The government should have a spending cap that they can't increase, and should be required to balance their budget and show how every single penny is spent, and if they can't do that, they should be fired on the spot.
I'm running for president next term - this is crazy - I know I can do better then the last handful of nuts we've had.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @07:11PM
Because nobody would be spending money. The government would be forced to spend money in order to keep things running and would have to have massive interest rates to compete against the deflating currency.
There's a reason why fiat currencies are so common. Trying to back it with gold only works if you can produce enough to keep up with economic growth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 17 2017, @03:58PM
Only if inflation is higher than the interest rate on the debt.