alt.hn

8/19/2026 at 8:24:47 PM

U.S. Debt Hits $40T as America's Borrowing Binge Continues

 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/19/business/economy/us-debt-40-trillion.html

by latchkey

8/20/2026 at 1:40:40 PM

I feel like the media is anticipating a new Democrat controlled congress, and so they are starting to bang on the national debt panic drum in preparation. Not that the debt isn't a problem, and $40T is certainly a milestone, but if the dems do somehow get back in power I'd bet $40T that we will all be treated to endless op-eds about how we have to do austerity because the debt is out of control.

The military will still get it's $1.5T+ budget tho. There's always enough money for more bombs.

by pickleglitch

8/20/2026 at 4:15:01 PM

It's starting to feel hopeless. A decade of party rotations and this issue still exists. The fiscally liberal will spend and the fiscally conservative aren't being fiscally conservative. How come we no longer hear about DOGE? How long until 20% of all tax revenue goes just to interest on the debt?

by webninja

8/20/2026 at 4:33:59 PM

DOGE shut down and was a farce from the beginning. Typical Musk. He only shut down regulatory parts of the government that were investigating him and stole as much data as he could. A few publicity stunts like installing starlink near the White House.

by bakies

8/20/2026 at 7:07:53 PM

There is no fiscal conservative option in the US at this point. The republicans are just right populists now

by HDThoreaun

8/20/2026 at 4:33:21 PM

>How come we no longer hear about DOGE?

DOGE was an obvious farce that defunded and destroyed necessary programs on a purely ideological basis[0], intimidated government employees[1], created far more tax waste than it ever found, much less claimed[2,3] disrupted legitimate government functions by firing necessary employees who needed to be rehired[4], exfiltrated an unknown amount of private data to Palantir and who knows who else[5,6], and then after permanent damage to the government was done, was closed[7]. It's mission is complete, there's nothing more to hear about them.

I'm sorry if you ever thought DOGE had anything to do with an honest, good-faith effort to reduce government waste. If so, you were lied to. Its purpose was to purge the government of ideological enemies, protect Elon Musk's business interests[8] and lay the groundwork for the transition to authoritarianism.

[0]https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-cuts-based-more-politi...

[1]https://www.salon.com/2025/02/06/musks-doge-operation-sued-o...

[2]https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/07/...

[3]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-wall-of-receipts-elon-musk...

[4]https://apnews.com/article/doge-musk-trump-gsa-fired-employe...

[5]https://www.wired.com/story/doge-collecting-immigrant-data-s...

[6]https://whistleblower.org/in-the-news/the-independent-whistl...

[7]https://www.nffe.org/press-release/doge-fails-and-shutters-y...

[8]https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5293382/x-elon-musk-dog...

I mean it was named after a 4chan shitposting meme, why did anyone take it at face value to begin with?

by krapp

8/20/2026 at 1:34:18 AM

And they spent it all on healthcare, public housing and high speed rail right?

by TitaRusell

8/20/2026 at 1:21:59 PM

Some's going on sensible things like returning steam catapults to aircraft carriers.

by tim333

8/20/2026 at 1:50:54 PM

And the Epstein Memorial Ballroom.

by krapp

8/20/2026 at 4:20:16 PM

Sure, I heard it was all spent on childless daycares in Minneapolis.

by webninja

8/20/2026 at 1:51:18 AM

> Ten years ago, the debt level was at $19.4 trillion.

$80 trillion if it doubles again in 10 years.

by thelastgallon

8/20/2026 at 5:29:09 AM

That's not how debt works. It would be way more than $80 trillion.

by H4cks0r1337

8/20/2026 at 1:23:55 AM

And who's going to hold the US responsible for repayment? Way I see it, US has the power to just tell any creditor that they won't be repaying, whether through structuring it as some economic package or just straight up saying go suck it. The former's been done before (1933); maybe eventually we'll see the latter, if a nation has the balls to ask. And talking about it is pretty pointless, like talking about how wet you'll get swimming in a pool.

by skeledrew

8/20/2026 at 5:37:19 PM

> And who's going to hold the US responsible for repayment?

untrivial (vast majority) of debt holders are US corps, banks and citizens.

by andriy_koval

8/20/2026 at 8:50:35 PM

> Way I see it, US has the power to just tell any creditor that they won't be repaying

It does not. The Fourteenth Amendment forbids that. Section 4:

"The validity of the public debt of the United States...shall not be questioned."

by otterley

8/20/2026 at 9:21:41 PM

US can always print currency to cover existing debt, the problem is convincing investors to keep lending money to the US and keep buying US bonds

by bijowo1676

8/21/2026 at 2:24:28 PM

You can always print money out of thin air and instead with debt, fuel spending with inflation.

by ReptileMan

8/20/2026 at 2:28:32 AM

Yes, some sort of technical default is likely in a few decades. I expect that when debt payments become unsustainable the government will force bondholders to exchange their holdings with new bonds that have the same nominal face value but longer maturity and artificially low interest rates. The next step will be legislation that forces all retirement accounts such as 401(k) to purchase Treasury bonds for "safety".

by nradov

8/20/2026 at 8:57:16 AM

So what happens when people stop lending money? No more military spending? No more social security? Massive tax rises? Hyper-inflation?

by verzali

8/20/2026 at 4:48:53 PM

I'd say if the trend continues: all the above and full federal governmental collapse.

Compound interest is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Currently interest on the debt is ~19% and is growing at a CAGR of 11.2% per year. At the current growth rate, how long until interest on the debt consumes 100% of all tax revenue?

A ray of sunshine & hope: Many state governments who are both low-debt and fiscally conservative will be fine. We also experience small amounts of this with each governmental shutdown.

Start planting fruit trees so the next generation can eat.

by webninja

8/20/2026 at 11:47:46 AM

They will be told "lend us money, or else" and that loan will get processed because the alternative is worse.

by skeledrew

8/20/2026 at 4:36:13 PM

Or else what? The military can't keep a little water way open that's critical to international trade

by bakies

8/20/2026 at 8:39:48 AM

> US has the power to just tell any creditor that they won't be repaying

Sure, and what happens then? Nobody buys new gov bonds; non-gov debt rating stops making sense. For the financial system it's a shock so huge it's better to only do this if no other solution is possible, at which point the gov is bankrupt anyway.

by tpm

8/20/2026 at 11:45:22 AM

> Nobody buys new gov bonds; non-gov debt rating stops making sense.

Sanctions, black-listing and potentially more for anyone trying to play cute and do anything that "disadvantages the US". The rest of the world is forced to comply in enforcing it all, because nobody has backing power to stand against the US in any way.

by skeledrew

8/20/2026 at 12:26:13 PM

Perhaps true 20 years ago, today I'm not so sure.

From across the pond, the USA looks like a has been who relies a lot on old merits. The world got bombed to pieces 80 years ago, but has step by step rebuilt itself.

The advantage the US had has been squandered by ineffective leadership.

by Gud

8/20/2026 at 1:26:46 PM

They still hold the advantage no matter what. If diplomacy doesn't work, they can sanction or tariff or impose export controls. Or they can invade.

by skeledrew

8/20/2026 at 8:22:43 PM

Hmm let's examine how well the US sanctions against China and Russia are working, shall we?

Forget those, how well are the vaunted US sanctions working against Iran?

by khriss

8/20/2026 at 3:04:21 PM

Invasion seems untenable given the leadership and strategy we are seeing in this giant Iran defeat.

by myvoiceismypass

8/20/2026 at 1:29:57 PM

> Sanctions, black-listing and potentially more for anyone trying to play cute and do anything that "disadvantages the US". The rest of the world is forced to comply in enforcing it all, because nobody has backing power to stand against the US in any way.

You mean like the compliance of weak, sanctioned state of Iran with US demands?

by ydat

8/20/2026 at 12:10:44 PM

That's not how any of this works.

And anyway, most US bonds are held by US domestic entities.

by tpm

8/20/2026 at 1:23:02 PM

Doesn't really matter whether domestic or international, company or country. Anthropic got black-listed for not giving unrestricted access to their AI tech. India was slapped with an extra 25% tariff just for trading with Russia. Venezuela was invaded and its president snatched for not playing nice for US interests for too long. The list goes on and on throughout history. What the US wants, the US gets.

by skeledrew

8/20/2026 at 2:17:48 PM

Sure, see also Vietnam, Afganistan, Iraq, Iran, where they didn't get what they wanted.

by tpm

8/20/2026 at 2:16:08 AM

> talking about it is pretty pointless, like talking about how wet you'll get swimming in a pool.

Until the pool runs out of funding to do to replace the evaporated water.

by DANmode

8/20/2026 at 11:49:30 AM

It'll never run since they have the power to demand that it be kept sufficiently full.

by skeledrew

8/20/2026 at 2:37:35 PM

Are we living in the same reality? The US can't even keep a single strait safe right now against a fairly "weak" state. We don't have the political willpower for American servicemen to die in defensive wars like Ukraine or to hold back ISIS in Afghanistan.

How, exactly, are we going to demand sovereignties like China or the EU give us trillions of dollars?

by Tadpole9181

8/20/2026 at 8:48:16 PM

foreign gov treasury holdings are only some 9% (mostly Japan, UK, China, Belgium and Canada)

As a serious country you can just keep servicing the bonds with bonds. If the government is... well.... it starts to look more like one of those poker websites where you cant cash out?

The world is full of similar but poorly organized ..., trump is doing one hell of a job uniting them. It seems a lot like that outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond.

I combine some "hallucinated" numbers into a table here

https://chat.deepseek.com/share/bzam2y198qps3l2z4x

by 6510

8/20/2026 at 7:35:21 PM

80% of bonds are held domestically, and it's what US banks use to back deposits. If the US government stops paying its debt, your money in the bank will vaporize. And no, the FDIC won't be able to restore it. That's among the least bad things that will happen.

by IAmGraydon

8/20/2026 at 1:31:47 AM

What if we viewed national debt like CPI? It’s not that it’s ridiculously higher now, it’s that money works differently now.

What used do seem implausible is now accepted as normal, and tough luck if your income and wealth fell behind / didn’t keep pace.

by odyssey7

8/20/2026 at 5:39:17 PM

the scary part is how much they spend from budget to service debt and pay interests

by andriy_koval

8/19/2026 at 10:18:00 PM

They need to cut your taxes and raise everyone elses.

The US needs the binface party as a credible 3rd choice.

by oivaksef

8/20/2026 at 5:52:24 AM

What the USA needs is more decentralisation and direct democracy.

Why has the federal state accumulated $40T debt?

by Gud

8/20/2026 at 12:02:03 PM

Because it is politically much easier to just spend on medicare, social security and military than it is to raise taxes to cover that spending?

Interest on debt is already a double-digit percentage of spending, so the problem gets worse by itself.

And honestly: How many people in the US would actually change party only because of irresponsible spending? In my view, this is like priority number 4 at best for most people, and many at most moan about it instead of letting it drive their political choices. Political representatives also basically only ever throw it around as accusation against opponents, without ever actually doing better themselves (just consider the Trump-1 promise of getting rid of the debt during his first term: not even an attempt was made).

by myrmidon

8/20/2026 at 12:37:33 PM

> this is like priority number 4 at best for most people…

No surprise, they're (we're) humans after all.

When the shit hits the fan with The Great Depression II, we'll reset our priorities then.

by JKCalhoun

8/20/2026 at 7:10:34 PM

Direct democracy is exactly how you get fiscal policy of wracking up massive debt. Voters will never choose to balance the budget

by HDThoreaun

8/20/2026 at 3:14:59 AM

> The US needs the binface party as a credible 3rd choice.

Infinitely more credible than either of our current parties at this point.

by blooalien

8/20/2026 at 12:26:16 AM

The media should report the number that actually matters: debt to GDP ratio. It’s quite high as well, but it’s the more meaningful number.

by lokar

8/20/2026 at 7:56:40 AM

And yet more meaningful than that is what the debt increase is spent on. If it's infrastructure/education/etc, productivity/population welfare will rise over time. If it's debt through tax cuts, temporary productivity might be argued (some of the GDP here), but the nation will be in decline.

by croon

8/19/2026 at 9:40:39 PM

This admin has done basically the opposite of everything it said it would do…who could’ve guessed?

by bamboozled

8/19/2026 at 9:41:46 PM

What? Basically everything they’ve done was laid out in project 2025. The people who voted for this were warned about exactly what has happened.

by solid_fuel

8/19/2026 at 9:46:21 PM

"Why u surprised, bro? Project 2025, duh!" meme needs to die, it's a lazy answer. You know full well what OP is talking about. Where's the $2 gasoline? Why does the debt keep going up with the party of fiscal restraint in charge? No more foreign wars, eh? Etc. There's nothing wrong with reminding folks what was said on the campaign stump.

by mikestew

8/19/2026 at 9:57:56 PM

Why remind people of the lies? We all knew they were lies. And the people who believed the lies will not have their minds changed

There's a 30% bedrock of America that appears to be simply broken beyond repair. That's his permanent voting and approval base

by CursedSilicon

8/20/2026 at 6:28:06 PM

Nearly 50% (49.8) of all voters were either duped by the lies or totally okay with the lies (or some combo of both). Over 77 million Americans.

by myvoiceismypass

8/20/2026 at 7:45:31 PM

You've probably heard the saying "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times." Well, it's true. And the good times have created many, many weak men. The next part is going to be here sooner than most think.

by IAmGraydon

8/19/2026 at 10:00:21 PM

No, I disagree. The reason I bring up project 2025 is because we knew this would happen. The actions this administration is taking are exactly what people who were paying attention said they would do.

Why does this matter? Because anyone claiming "this isn't what I voted for" is lying. They weren't tricked, they weren't deceived by his alluring words, they made a choice knowing what the consequences would be. And now that the consequences are here, they want to cry and pretend like they didn't know. Like a child touching a hot stove.

by solid_fuel

8/19/2026 at 10:54:53 PM

The issue was that Project 2025 seemed like something conspiracy theorists believed in, I didn't see Trump go on Rogan with a folder called Project 2025 and read through it with him and discuss the real plans outlined in the book.

There was basically two competing agendas, one was kept more secretive because they knew it wasn't popular, and then there was the campaign promises, which IMO is what people believed in, apparently.

The shocking part for me is believing a conman would be telling you the truth this time around, I'd say most people voted to just hurt the other side / own the libs though.

by bamboozled

8/20/2026 at 12:09:06 AM

> The issue was that Project 2025 seemed like something conspiracy theorists believed in

It seemed this way because it was so obviously outrageous. Well, here we are... not outrageous now.

But it was never a conspiracy. The Heritage Foundation is the largest Conservative think-tank in America. They basically write GOP policy and have been for decades. They're not some tiny group of weirdos. They guided basically all of the policy change during the Reagan administration. You know? Ronald Reagan? The blueprint of the modern GOP? Yeah, he didn't come up with that. The Heritage Foundation did.

by preg_match

8/19/2026 at 11:10:43 PM

> The issue was that Project 2025 seemed like something conspiracy theorists believed in, I didn't see Trump go on Rogan with a folder called Project 2025 and read through it with him and discuss the real plans outlined in the book.

And in 2016, I may have been sympathetic to this argument. By the time 2024 had rolled around, we had already endured the trainwreck of his first administration, his failures while handling covid, several dozen other major scandals, oh and that insurrection he attempted on January 6th.

So I have no sympathy for anyone who claims they believed what he promised. None whatsoever.

> There was basically two competing agendas, one was kept more secretive because they knew it wasn't popular, and then there was the campaign promises, which IMO is what people believed in, apparently.

Look, ultimately here is where I disagree: I am not willing to give any of his supporters the benefit of the doubt anymore. I don't believe for a second that they thought he would cut spending or get the debt down or whatever - he didn't even try in his first term, why would his second be different? Pointing at his promises like they believed them is just giving them cover for their own choices.

> The shocking part for me is believing a conman would be telling you the truth this time around, I'd say most people voted to just hurt the other side / own the libs though.

This, we agree on. I personally believe most of his supporters voted for him specifically for the violence and pain he is inflicting on people. That's the only part of his platform that has been consistent, and it's the only part that has been delivered. Ultimately, that is what his voters want and support. They want to hurt their fellow citizens because they hate them. Whether that traces back to decades of Fox News, "economic grievances", whatever, it doesn't matter.

by solid_fuel

8/20/2026 at 8:22:23 AM

Look, ultimately here is where I disagree: I am not willing to give any of his supporters the benefit of the doubt anymore.

I think more people chose not to vote because they didn't really like Biden (too old) and didn't really believe project 2025 was real, that was more what I meant with that comment.

by bamboozled

8/20/2026 at 4:50:56 PM

Biden wasn't on the ticket, Kamala Harris was. And the age difference between Biden and Trump is just three years. That age has only ever been a problem for Biden, even now when Trump is showing signs of physical and mental decline far worse than Biden ever did, is a testament to the effectiveness of American right-wing propaganda and meme culture.

As far as not believing Project 2025 was real, people can say that until they're blue in the face. The evidence that it was real and supported by the majority of American conservatives, Republicans and Trump voters, and much of it by Trump himself, was obvious to everyone else.

by krapp

8/20/2026 at 1:58:45 AM

brought to you by the "party of fiscal responsibility"

by insane_dreamer

8/20/2026 at 7:13:10 PM

And democrats were the party of slavery, these things change since there are only 2 parties in the country

by HDThoreaun

8/20/2026 at 11:37:42 PM

what does that have to do with it?

the GOP is _still_ proclaiming itself to be the party of fiscal responsibility

by insane_dreamer

8/19/2026 at 8:29:53 PM

By the time Trump leaves office, the whole federal government will be completely trashed, up to and including the East Wing of the White House being torn down to a hole in the ground.

I've never felt so alienated from the leaders of my industry, from my politicians, and from my fellow citizens. Ya'll should have known better. It is the information age, all ignorance is willful ignorance.

by rhelz

8/20/2026 at 3:45:03 AM

> I've never felt so alienated from the leaders of my industry, from my politicians, and from my fellow citizens. Ya'll should have known better. It is the information age, all ignorance is willful ignorance.

^^^ 1000% this right here. Right there with ya (sadly)... Not at all the world we were promised as children. "Star Trek" vs "Mad Max"/"Terminator"? Humanity chose the latter. We ain't gonna survive long enough to escape this planet.

by blooalien

8/20/2026 at 12:53:14 PM

Star Trek must have looked a little too DEI, and we all thought we were somehow going to be Immortan Joe…

by JKCalhoun

8/19/2026 at 9:21:54 PM

Citizens United ruined the great american experiment. if you have seen the chart of campaign financing since CU, you would understand. Politicians have zero need to represent citizens because they know unlimited funds are available for marketing to keep/earn your seat.

America simply is no longer a democracy or representative democracy.

by frogperson

8/19/2026 at 9:31:41 PM

It is still people, not money, who votes for them over and over again…

by qeternity

8/20/2026 at 10:12:30 AM

And the primary reason for people voting like this is the ungodly sums of money spent on elections, combined with the media apparatus built up by the right.

I don't think any democracy could survive Fox News. Unfortunately the global right is colluding to export this concept across the globe...

by Timon3

8/20/2026 at 8:52:34 PM

If money won elections, then the outcome of every election could be predicted with accuracy based solely on the relative spending by or on behalf of each candidate.

In reality, that's not how it works. There are countless examples of candidates who outspent their opponents and lost.

Money gets you reach. It doesn't get you guaranteed results.

Besides, the voters don't get any of that money, nor do they even know most of the time who got more financial support. They'd be insulted by even the slightest suggestion that money is driving their vote.

by otterley

8/20/2026 at 10:15:24 PM

I didn't say that money wins elections, but nice try.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if conservatives could affect more voters with the same amount of money, since spreading bullshit is much cheaper than proving it wrong. The right can flood the zone with a firehose of lies, and even if they literally admit these lies, their voters go along.

by Timon3

8/21/2026 at 4:05:53 AM

I...didn’t say you did say that? No need to be defensive.

But a reasonable interpretation of “the primary reason for people voting like this is the ungodly sums of money spent on elections” is that such a direct causal link exists.

If you meant something else, happy to receive a clarification.

by otterley

8/21/2026 at 1:17:50 PM

Then I must admit I'm unsure how to interpret your objections, since I understand you to be arguing against the position "The group spending the most money must always win elections". If you're not assuming that I'm taking this position, why bring it up?

> If you meant something else, happy to receive a clarification.

As a thought experiment, assume we're playing gods and decide to simulate a bunch of universes almost exactly like ours, so we can reliably study how civilizations develop (free from the influence of random chance). Then we evaluate how many of these civilizations had periods of strong corruption, loss in quality of life, and all the other negatives we're experiencing this decade.

My argument is: you'd find a correlation between these periods, and the relative amounts of wealth invested into politics. Note this doesn't imply that bigger sums of money must lead to victory - especially if the thesis mentioned in my first reply is correct, which I very much assume it is.

by Timon3

8/21/2026 at 1:42:35 PM

I'm not sure. On the other hand, there're plenty of corruption and loss of quality of life where there's not much money in electioneering, or not even a democracy. Take Russia, for example, or any of a number of African or Central American countries.

by otterley

8/20/2026 at 1:00:52 PM

I sympathize with your point, we should still blame the voters, but the 1% wouldn't be throwing billions of dollars into politics if they were seeing zero return on their money.

by JKCalhoun

8/19/2026 at 9:37:54 PM

Well when the choice is between two corrupt and/or bribed politicians...

by oth001

8/20/2026 at 1:01:44 PM

Agree, vote for the most wildly corrupt.

by JKCalhoun

8/20/2026 at 8:40:14 PM

Citizen's United was decided in 2010. Hillary Clinton out-spent Trump by about $500 million in 2016 and lost.

The reality is that spending can keep a candidate from losing an election for dumb reasons (e.g. lack of name recognition), but it can't win an election by itself. There are plenty of examples of the bigger spender losing, both before and after Citizen's United.

by snowwrestler

8/20/2026 at 6:25:17 PM

// America simply is no longer a democracy or representative democracy. //

Well, that's the kicker. We actually did vote him in. TWICE. It would be great if we could blame some cabal or coup or something. It would get us off the hook.

But the sad fact is that Trump--after sending cop-killing goons to the capital to try to steel the last election--we voted him in by a margin of 53%.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

by rhelz

8/21/2026 at 4:28:11 AM

[dead]

by WrexyBalls

8/20/2026 at 12:51:29 PM

"I've never felt so alienated from the leaders of my industry, from my politicians, and from my fellow citizens."

I'm with you, brother/sister.

by JKCalhoun

8/19/2026 at 8:42:11 PM

I don't understand how US Republicans talk about fiscal conservation, yet allow rampant profligacy. They must have a different agenda than the one they speak of.

by adamredwoods

8/19/2026 at 9:05:52 PM

What they always really mean is tax cuts for those who need it least

by nielsbot

8/19/2026 at 8:43:53 PM

"Talk" and "Walk" aren't the same word although they rhyme. And they only refer to Democrats, who are the only ones with agency in government (Murc's Law).

by jleyank

8/19/2026 at 8:56:11 PM

When they engage in financial conservation it's cover for destroying programs they don't like. The fact that they are cheering on yet another incredibly stupid, expensive, and pointless war proves that they are not "fiscal conservatives."

by pstuart

8/19/2026 at 8:31:27 PM

New representation will get voted in because of the current macro, will have to raise taxes to pay down the debt to prevent an eventual debt spiral, the electorate will be angry they don't have cake (unless the taxes are applied disproportionally to the top income and wealth percentiles), and we'll be right back to irresponsible policy. I don't have much hope for the US, but at least the bond market are the adults in the room currently. Congrats to those who strip mined the country successfully.

by toomuchtodo

8/19/2026 at 8:44:02 PM

> New representation will get voted in because of the current macro, will have to raise taxes to pay down the debt to prevent an eventual debt spiral

That debt is never getting paid, I'm afraid.

by rvz

8/19/2026 at 9:47:00 PM

I'm old enough to remember when people said that the debt Ronald Reagan racked up would never be repaid. Which means I also am old enough to remember Clinton turning record deficits into record surpluses.

I remember when the U.S. Treasury stopped issuing 30 year bonds---no deficit, no need to borrow!! Boy did that scare the bejezuz out of the financial industry though. I read an op-ed in the Wall Street journal about how are we ever going to offer 30 year mortgages if the banks can't buy 30 year treasury bonds?

Then the supreme court handed the 2000 election to George Bush, and the financial industry was happy again, because record surpluses turned into record deficits again. The banks still lent money to homebuyers--in fact, so many people took out mortgages that.....

The answer is so simple, everybody know it: spend less than you earn, borrow only for things which will pay you back. We can start doing that this afternoon, if we wanted to.

by rhelz

8/19/2026 at 8:44:43 PM

US throws off ~$5T in profits per year to shareholders. It can be paid back, you just have to go after it. It's a choice not to. Forward curves go up because we choose to not reduce the debt? All consumer borrowing costs go up accordingly (consumer debt and mortgages are priced off of US treasuries)? A crisis occurs and there isn't any borrowing capacity left to get to the other side? Sucks to suck, try to suck less in the future. Natural consequences are an important component of the learning process.

Can't mortgage the economic future of the US forever (which is what treasuries are, borrowing against future US taxpayer revenue), as the bond market is actively demonstrating. Something will give, even if that is "monetizing the debt" and a soft default, with US purchasing power rapidly declining (you thought everyone didn’t like inflation before? Hooboy just wait). Pick your crisis adventure, the message is this fiscal policy is unsustainable.

by toomuchtodo

8/19/2026 at 8:59:03 PM

The challenge now is that we have to have a vision for what we want to build.

by conartist6

8/20/2026 at 1:43:41 PM

Half the country does have such a vision, and they're getting exactly what they want.

The question is why the other half can't seem to do shit about it.

by krapp

8/20/2026 at 8:12:05 PM

The system as it works is made to cause partisan balance to stay close to the competitive 50/50

That may make it seem like nothing every changes, and much wind is spent on it. Real change is often so deep and slow that it just isn't even news. That's because politicians don't usually lead, they follow

by conartist6

8/19/2026 at 8:42:07 PM

This debt problem was long before Trump and this is why the US dollar is being printed straight to $0, until it loses its reserve currency status.

by rvz

8/19/2026 at 8:55:15 PM

It really already did lose its reserve status, in a manner of speaking. There isn't ever going to be a gold standard again (even if there is, would the actual gold have the sort of real life uses it had when the gold standard was around? Not like people fill teeth with it anymore unless you are some sort of thug).

by jambalaya8

8/19/2026 at 10:09:58 PM

Gold is a fantastically useful element. It's vastly more useful today as our knowledge and application of chemistry has improved.

It's probably more in demand as a commodity today than it ever has been.

by unrented7977

8/20/2026 at 2:49:39 PM

Gold is a useful element, for sure, but there's no where's near enough of it to serve as a reserve currency. E.G. the U.S. reserves are worth about $1.2 trillion (changes each day, of course). Compare that to a national economy which has a GDP of over $30 trillion.

All these old gold bugs just can't wrap their heads around what exponential growth really looks like. But we can grow our productive capacity far, far faster than we can grow the supply of gold.

by rhelz

8/20/2026 at 12:36:28 AM

I hear platinum is the way to go. Or iron.

by jambalaya8

8/19/2026 at 8:58:37 PM

The East Wing argument is such a weird hill to die on. Even Obama era staffers admitted it was embarrassing to welcome foreign dignitaries to a muddy patch of grass rather than a fit for purpose room.

It's also majority private sector funded, and numerous admins have made substantial changes to the White House.

Bush 2 and Obama made substantial renovations to the White House, as did Clinton.

Trump has a massive and growing pile of rightful criticism and you're focusing on a project which costs 1/1,000th the cost of the Iran War and Obama staffers admit is necessary? Priorities?

by 0xy

8/19/2026 at 9:05:40 PM

The major issue with the East Wing was how it was done, not that it was done ("it": renovations in general, possibly even tear down and full rebuild). Also the costs have been ballooning and the "no taxpayer funding" claim turned out to be a lie.

by Jtsummers

8/19/2026 at 11:21:07 PM

> It's also majority private sector funded

See if you can spot the ethical problems and corruption in that. It's there, I promise you. Look hard.

by Rapzid

8/19/2026 at 9:16:48 PM

Die on? It's absolutely a symbol of the incompetent, corrupt and destructive admin--it's not just the dollars.

We should be very suspicions of the potential corruption caused by companies and individuals giving money to Trump's pet project.

Finally, we can criticize multiple things at the same time.

by nielsbot

8/20/2026 at 8:37:26 PM

> It's also majority private sector funded,

Really? Wasn't it supposed to be 100% funded by Trump's cronies, who of course were doing so completely out of the goodness of their hearts. Why did that shift to 'majority' private funding? Also, if the funding is so on the up and up, why has Trump refused to release a full audit?

by khriss

8/19/2026 at 9:12:09 PM

How embarrassing is it to welcome foreign dignitaries to a building which has been partially torn down? I man, if he actually had replaced it with a ballroom, that would be different.

But that's not what we get from Trump. He can't even maintain a reflecting pool--we're not going to get a ballroom.

No, he's going to leave the White house much worse than he found it. Which is his style.

by rhelz

8/19/2026 at 9:18:29 PM

There's a long history of the reflecting pool having severe algae issues dating back to the early 2000s. Obama spent $30m on repairs that ultimately failed. Is your argument that the pool continuing to fail as it has done under successive governments is exclusively the fault of the admin that has far larger and far more serious points to criticism them on?

by 0xy

8/19/2026 at 9:35:20 PM

The argument is that massive fuckups are solely the responsibility of the party that initiated them when said party goes out of their way to avoid the established mechanisms for proposing, approving, and implementing those plans.

If there's a problem with a plan then there's a problem with the plan. If there's a problem with the implementation then there's a problem with the implementation.

But when you bypass that entire process and go roll out a bunch of changes and efforts that you claim will be flawless and dole out no-bid contracts that balloon past their estimates despite ending in complete or near complete failures then that's entirely on the leadership that kicked it off.

There is no transparency here and it's not even possible to point to specific things that went wrong because it's effectively all undocumented and intentionally done outside of the existing systems and rules. And it happens again and again with different projects.

Each time it's the leadership's fault because they chose to step outside the normal processes and accountability leaving us with no way to learn from mistakes made during the exercise beyond "the processes exist for a reason, stop ignoring them".

by OneDeuxTriSeiGo

8/19/2026 at 11:26:57 PM

Don't forget the part where you then direct the DOJ to arrest and prosecute citizens inspecting the botched repair to THEIR POOL(as in the people's pool) so everyone in the admin can CYA and save face.

by Rapzid

8/20/2026 at 1:18:10 PM

I don’t remember Obama prosecuting citizens over it

by wookmaster

8/19/2026 at 8:38:40 PM

This started long before Trump. Ironically things quite stable under Clinton. 2nd term Bush not so great, 2nd term Obama not great, Trump post covid not great, Biden was terrible, Trump 2.0 terrible.

The only real solution is to enforce the actual debt ceiling, the begin lowering it a few hundred billion each year, destroying things we don't need. Require all new spending be funded by the 2.5x destruction of existing spending and departments.

by exabrial

8/20/2026 at 3:31:27 AM

Why is it ironic that Clinton balanced the budget?

Second term Bush not so great? Can you think of anything in his first term that maybe impacted the deficit for, say, two decades?

by cosmicgadget

8/20/2026 at 1:04:24 PM

I'll guess: imaginary WMD?

by JKCalhoun

8/19/2026 at 9:08:36 PM

I loathed the actions of DOGE but believe that "government efficiency" (yeah, lily oxymoronic) should be baked into everything the government does, most importantly, even the programs that one supports.

That has been one of many failures of the Dems to both pursue and socialize.

by pstuart

8/19/2026 at 9:41:36 PM

The Democrats have, in the past forty years, been the only party to have consistently been able to reduce the deficit, even creating a surplus by the end of Clinton's presidency.

They've also been the only party to have successfully reduced the cost of government and made it more efficient in the process. Clinton's bipartisan National Partnership for Reinventing Government was what DOGE claimed to be, as it sharply cut the number of federal government staff without affecting delivery. [0][1]

Obama and Biden were less effective than Clinton, but still drove the deficit down toward the end of their terms, and Obama in particular tried to implement a series of reforms to improve efficiency such as creating 18F which saved a bunch on government software contracts in the years it was active. The Republicans have not seriously done anything similar, and DOGE doesn't count because from the start it was clear it wasn't a serious attempt to reduce actual waste but an ideologically-motivated exercise run by unskilled and inexperienced people.

This isn't to say Democratic administrations have been all good or that the Democratic Party hasn't also loved its pork, but overall at least when in control of the presidency the party has tended to stabilise America's finances, improve tax revenue collection, make government more efficient, and reduce deficit spending far more than the Republicans have.

The Democrats retain at least some elements of their technocratic side, but the Republicans have gone all-in on populism and thrown theirs out.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinv...

[1] https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/ls1088

by _djo_

8/19/2026 at 9:23:26 PM

The federal government is actually quite efficient in what it does. For example, the overhead for Social Security is between 0.5% and 1%. I.E, less than the mutual funds in my 401k charge per yeah for "administrative fees."

When people talk about government waste, what they really are talking about is things the government does which they don't approve of. E.g. ICE--is that wasteful spending? Depends upon whether you like ICE or not. Aide to Israel? Same stuff.

That's why DOGE got nowhere. There is no mythical mammoth waste, fraud, and abuse in the government.

by rhelz

8/19/2026 at 9:45:16 PM

Correct. It's also often forgotten how much the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR) had done to make government more streamlined and efficient between 1993 and 1998. That took care of pretty much all the low-hanging fruit that those behind DOGE falsely believed was still there.

by _djo_

8/20/2026 at 7:03:18 AM

DOGE achieved their goal - take the info and speed up destruction of the state, of public service.

Oh, and stop or limit research into anything not centered at white men.

by watwut

8/19/2026 at 9:34:25 PM

[flagged]

by qzx_pierri

8/20/2026 at 12:18:41 AM

This isn't a refutation or even an argument. If something was obviously incorrect, you would think it would be trivial to prove wrong. But, evidently not.

The idea that the government is inherently inefficient is an idea that GOP just made up ~50 years ago to justify tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts which, by the way, got us into this debt mess. This all started with Reagan, who royally fucked our government fiscally.

The only people who have been able to control the deficit are, surprise surprise, democratic administrations. Just look at the numbers, ignore the propaganda. This stuff is cut-and-dry.

by preg_match

8/20/2026 at 3:39:15 AM

The Department of Defense has never received a clean opinion on a full financial audit. Since starting comprehensive yearly reviews in 2018, the Pentagon has failed eight consecutive enterprise-wide audits due to scale, missing records, and untrackable assets.

Federal Government Made $236 billion “Improper Payments” Last Fiscal Year: https://www.gao.gov/blog/federal-government-made-236-billion...

The only propaganda I see here is coming from those who are so out of touch of reality that they firmly believe there's a chunk of the uniparty that doesn't increase the deficit.

by armitron

8/20/2026 at 7:48:20 AM

A team of outsiders got carte blanche to find and kill waste in your government. How much did they find?

by abenga

8/19/2026 at 9:42:47 PM

When things are monitored to such a degree that a startup I was at couldn't bring doughnuts to a meeting because NASA was gonna there and that could possibly be a bribe, I don't know about efficient, but there's a reason why DOGE couldn't really find any waste.

by fragmede

8/20/2026 at 6:12:01 PM

Mate, things being monitored to that degree is the waste.

I've worked in government. Working in government will immediately disabuse any expectations of efficiency.

by eudamoniac

8/19/2026 at 9:19:59 PM

[flagged]

by 0xy

8/19/2026 at 10:06:27 PM

Welp, I am just glad I have no debts or loans myself; paid all my student loans off well over a decade ago. Excited to not have a credit rating whatsoever.

by jambalaya8

8/20/2026 at 1:19:01 AM

You still have a credit rating and you should be biased towards being indebted in the current environment. The likely path out is inflation, which decreases the real value of debt.

by rowens794

8/20/2026 at 1:40:06 AM

I don't actually. I paid the last of my monthly student loan payments off in 2013 when I was an ex-pat. The rest had long ago fell off my credit report. I know this because I pulled my credit and was told I have none also by a couple of apartment owners, when I looked at places.

I fought hard for a long time to keep my street addresses off of the major credit agencies for my personal protection/privacy; I have used mail receivers since roughly 2002 but only really succeeded in about 2008.

Believe me, when COVID hit, I had wanted to go buy or build a small house on a small plot of land. I did weeks of research on homesteading, and grabbed a ton of books on self-sufficiency farming. I put a lot of thought into dealing with the idea of the burden of credit to any bank, in the six years after covid started, before returning to the east coast for work.

by jambalaya8

8/20/2026 at 12:43:46 PM

I'm happy for you, but suspect the "Everything is Fine" meme could have substituted for your comment.

The ebbing tide will lower all ships…

by JKCalhoun

8/21/2026 at 12:08:29 AM

I fully know this. But someday if the dystopic bounty hunters come to me for a chunk of that distressingly ludicrous national debt, I can at least annoy them.

by jambalaya8

8/19/2026 at 9:10:19 PM

I guess it’s time to elect a couple democrats to curb the deficit while solving the impending social collapse.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that will happen this time.

by rbanffy

8/19/2026 at 10:17:51 PM

[flagged]

by newfriend

8/19/2026 at 10:45:56 PM

So, I am assuming you are native?

by codeTired

8/19/2026 at 11:16:05 PM

I think they are commenting on the OP being in Ireland

by indoorfish

8/19/2026 at 10:20:05 PM

[flagged]

by bigstrat2003

8/19/2026 at 11:23:59 PM

It's helpful to avoid "both sides"-ing, or abandoning all hope.

Clinton through 2001 - ended with a 1.2% GDP surplus

Bush through 2009 - ended with a 9.8% GDP deficit

Obama through 2017 - ended with a 3.4% GDP deficit

Trump through 2021 - ended with a 12.3% GDP deficit

Biden through 2025 - ended with a 5.9% GDP deficit

Trump now - running even higher, though final data isn't yet available.

There's a clear pattern available, where one party reliably leaves makes the situation worse, and the other party reliably makes the situation better. The fact that Democrats cannot undo all of the massive damage done by each Republican administration does not mean "both sides" are the same.

If you want third parties to win, they realistically need to start with local elections, so they can gain momentum and take the spot of one of the majors. (also helpful to get rid of FTTP voting in as many elections as possible).

We're seeing great success with local democratic socialists, who keep showing that government can be a force for good, it can be improved, and it can be done without blowing budgets. It's a promising start, and it's clearly threatening Dems and the GOP alike.

by porkpieshoe

8/20/2026 at 3:08:42 AM

> ...or abandoning all hope.

"Abandoning" all hope implies a choice. I never chose to have every last shred of hope and optimism I had forcibly ripped from me and stomped into the dirt by these scumbags we call "leaders" (and their idiot cultists). When will humanity learn that the types of people who become billionaires and trillionaires literally want us all dead? At this point they appear to also want themselves dead too, but it's all gonna be okay in the end, because one of them gets to die last with all the money, thereby "winning" the game.

by blooalien

8/19/2026 at 10:25:13 PM

I mean, there's fiscally responsible but the welfare department is never gonna make money at the end of the day spending is a political football. Trump's ICE got $10 billion, because what? So now in addition to DEA we have ICE and the TSA, and well, we can't un spend that money and shut them down so, well, shit.

by fragmede

8/20/2026 at 8:13:11 AM

> the welfare department is never gonna make money

No, but taxes make money and if you just stop spending on things like ICE and their concentration camps or overpriced and ineffective military action and equipment, you’ll see there is a lot of money left for giving everyone healthcare and a college education.

As an engineer, things like the F-35 are beautiful, and I want them to be developed - but war is changing fast and what was effective a generation ago is now vulnerable to cheap drones.

by rbanffy

8/19/2026 at 11:52:03 PM

ICE got $75 billion, with $45 billion of that allocated for concentration camps. And somebody's got to build those camps and supply them, and their CEOs are all buddies with Trump.

by pstuart

8/19/2026 at 11:09:53 PM

Financially ledger is just a social construct; the IOUs of the past are never paid off as they never mattered.

Finance shit just keeps innumerates and those ignorant of physics believing wild end of the universe theories.

For more look up Debt jubilee's; humans wiped the debt of the dead off the books and no black holes opened within the sun, no gods descended from Olympus and slaughtered the children

Fucking mesmerizing how its not just MAGA nutters obsessed with old spoken and written finance traditions; different semantics than religion but same goal of kowtowing the proletariat.

This site helps propagate such paranoias with the tilt it has towards startup funding and yada yada. Smartest engineers I have ever worked with earned PhDs designing experiments for Tevatron and working on NASA satellites. We often had a laugh at how such social hacks dupe so many wannabe smart and educated people.

On the contrary startup genius software engineers are easily duped by social hacks.

by b1gTekken

8/19/2026 at 11:32:46 PM

Occasionally countries do default on debt. It doesn't go well.

by Ohentis

8/20/2026 at 1:04:17 AM

Life is the leading cause of death

by b1gTekken

8/20/2026 at 3:27:24 AM

> Life is the leading cause of death

100% fatality rate thus far...

by blooalien

8/19/2026 at 11:27:56 PM

US Treasuries happen to be a significant part of many peoples retirement savings. So I think your hot take is pretty uninformed.

by just_mc

8/20/2026 at 1:21:37 AM

[flagged]

by b1gTekken

8/19/2026 at 9:59:05 PM

[flagged]

by DoesntMatter22

8/19/2026 at 10:12:38 PM

Trump, 1st term, added 24% of GDP worth of debt.

That's more or less the same number of Obama and Bush, but they served two terms each.

In his second term, he's already added 11% in a record 19 months.

by epolanski

8/19/2026 at 11:14:51 PM

What's the difference? Everyone involved has been completely reckless with the debt. You think a democrat will somehow stop spending? Both parties are super happy to drive the car off the cliff

by DoesntMatter22

8/20/2026 at 2:34:59 AM

They just told you what the difference is.

by donohoe

8/20/2026 at 5:08:08 AM

There is no practical difference. Both parties are glad to drive the car off a cliff

by DoesntMatter22

8/20/2026 at 8:01:02 AM

The big difference is that, at the current rate, economic collapse of the US will happen in my lifetime, and I’m almost 60. I wasn’t looking forward to that kind of planetary upheaval for my retirement.

by rbanffy

8/20/2026 at 12:47:53 PM

My wife worries about surviving the next Great Depression. "Do we have enough cash?", "Should I put off retirement?", etc.

I've tried to tell her that we're all going down. Workers will be laid off, markets will crash, real estate will collapse, money will inflate…

Best look instead for ways to try and enjoy life regardless.

by JKCalhoun

8/20/2026 at 7:31:22 PM

Well, the last president to steer the car away from the cliff came from one party, the other is currently mashing the accelerator toward it.

And that is without considering things like invading Iraq and Afghanistan, creating the global financial crisis, or turning on the money printer at the start of covid.

If you look at this information and say, "no difference" I don't think anyone here can help you.

by cosmicgadget

8/20/2026 at 6:04:08 AM

The difference is that this administration is running at double the rate of the previous ones, and George Bush oversaw both two wars and the global financial crisis in 2007.

Your argument "since you're already over the speed limit, 200 or 300 miles per hour don't matter". Sounds asinine.

In any case I didn't say anything about democrats, but for sure, this administration with large tax cuts and increased spending is speeding US into very dangerous territory.

by epolanski

8/20/2026 at 6:50:16 AM

Well all the other administrations were driving 200 or 300 miles over, now we are driving 500 over. It doesn't matter really, if we hit anything (like Japan dumping US treasuries) we may be dead.

The democrats thing was what I had originally replied to. My whole point is that it really doesn't matter who is in the White House really, both sides seem determined to rack up as much debt as possible and it'll probably spiral out of control.

Neither side wants to cut costs (not really), in fact many want to spend more.

by DoesntMatter22

8/20/2026 at 8:02:01 AM

> now we are driving 500 over

Keep in mind the car is not designed to generate lift at that speed.

by rbanffy

8/20/2026 at 7:57:32 AM

This is true globally, not just in the US, and that's why global debt keeps spiralling.

But I still find the argument "it doesn't matter if you're going 200 or 300 or 500 mph" completely asinine. It does, and it makes an enormous difference when the debt is so big in absolute terms.

You keep forcing an equality that's not there.

At the end of the day it's one specific administration that brought the largest tax cuts in history since 1981's Reagan (another republican) ones while increasing spending.

by epolanski

8/20/2026 at 8:03:47 AM

> and that's why global debt keeps spiralling.

Yes, but if the dollar collapses and is replaced by a new reserve currency while other countries have debts in dollars, they win and the US loses. Only the US loses, keep in mind. It’ll be the first time the US experiences that side of the stick.

by rbanffy

8/20/2026 at 9:22:02 PM

If the US suffers severely the rest of the world will collapse. There's no scenario in which that doesn't happen. Everything is interdepedant and many non US countries (like Europe, Japan, China) depend heavily on the US.

by DoesntMatter22

8/20/2026 at 4:22:30 PM

The point is is that it just doesn’t matter anymore. Neither party is going to stop it. No matter who is in power It’s going to end badly.

by DoesntMatter22

8/19/2026 at 10:15:46 PM

Don't bother, Republicans are the only ones that care about the debt and their ideology makes them incapable of realizing there very choice of candidates is the exact problem

by voxl

8/19/2026 at 10:00:01 PM

[flagged]

by copper-float

8/19/2026 at 10:34:07 PM

the history has demonstrated these are Republican problems.

Democrats are shit for other things, but not for fisical stupidity like cutting taxes and rasing spending.

by cyanydeez

8/20/2026 at 1:35:00 AM

Why does nobody post references anymore!? These are simple facts that nobody should be arguing about.

https://www.investopedia.com/democrats-vs-republicans-who-ha...

> Republican presidents added about $1.4 trillion per four-year term, compared to $1.2 trillion added by Democrats since 1913.

> Democratic presidents have added a total of $18 trillion to the national debt since 1913 (adjusted for inflation), while Republicans have added $17.3 trillion

So everyone downvoting and flagging people saying it's a problem with both parties should be ashamed. Tribalism is stupid.

by nomel

8/20/2026 at 10:34:05 PM

lmgtfy and ask chatgpt; if you cant' ascertain the truth of this statement you live in a delusion.

by cyanydeez

8/19/2026 at 10:47:07 PM

[flagged]

by Georgelemental

8/19/2026 at 10:48:56 PM

No, republicans have always raised spending more than democrats. They just have no impulse control, and only worry about the budget when a Democrat is in charge.

by seanmcdirmid

8/19/2026 at 11:11:45 PM

[flagged]

by copper-float

8/19/2026 at 11:23:57 PM

this is a fact you can look up

by thunderfork

8/19/2026 at 10:03:55 PM

I am ignorant. If they don't pay, who will charge it if the default?

by motbus3

8/19/2026 at 11:24:43 PM

If you are American, then it is you, for the most part.

Most of the US government debt is owed to institution and people in the US. All these retirement funds, social security, health insurance, etc... that own part of the government debt... well, you won't get what you paid for.

This is a simplistic and partial view, but I think that's the most personal way of thinking about it.

by GuB-42

8/20/2026 at 1:14:28 AM

That’s about it. You’re paying for roads and education and war with your retirement savings. There’s not really anyone else there to pick up the bill. There’d better be some kind of return on that investment so you can actually retire.

Printing more money devalues the currency your retirement is priced in, so that’s not an escape either.

by clickety_clack

8/19/2026 at 11:25:46 PM

The US citizens hold the majority of the debt so if the government default the people's savings and pension funds evaporate.

by owebmaster

8/19/2026 at 10:16:46 PM

A country that controls its currency can always bail itself out of all debt by printing all that money. Now they would destroy their whole economy in the process because of inflation and countries being mad about a country doing that. If they don't pay and default they kind of also piss everyone off and that makes the curency rates fall as well. In that case they would repay as much as they want really, the price for not doing that is economy strengt. The dollar could lose the global currency status either way, fun!

by xarwex

8/20/2026 at 12:34:12 AM

Inflation doesn't really capture what would happen.

Debasement is the appropriate term.

by 2dddd

8/19/2026 at 10:07:33 PM

It's literally impossible to default as you can simply emit new money and buy back the debt or pay the interest with the minted money.

Of course this comes with its own set of gigantic issues, likely triple digit inflation and hardship to raise money for generations.

But US can't default really.

by epolanski

8/20/2026 at 12:33:13 AM

Ofc the US can default and it will most likely in the event.

Debasement is far more painful - the treasury will simply choose not to come good on the obligations.

by 2dddd

8/20/2026 at 6:09:36 AM

Nonsense.

Credit worthiness is a must and you're talking about the savings and liquidity of all the world, us citizens, banks and institutions included.

There's a reason Germany and Italy can borrow lots of money at relatively low costs despite everything: no matter the economic crisis, no matter the inflation, no matter if the countries were in rubbles post not one, but two world wars, they always paid their debts.

I'm not sure how can you imagine that defaulting can be anywhere better than increasing inflation.

And the US in particular has the huge advantage of being able to mint the money to back it.

by epolanski

8/19/2026 at 11:45:15 PM

You’re the only one in the thread that gets any of this right. But: Monetizing the debt is replacing one asset (treasuries eg) that pays interest with a nominally equal asset that doesn’t (US dollar). How does that spur inflation? It’s a reduction in income over time. How does paying back our debt IN FULL hurt our credit worthiness?

by partloyaldemon

8/20/2026 at 12:22:25 AM

Money is special because it’s the only asset that can be used to purchase goods and services. If I have a pile of 10 year Treasury bonds worth $500, and I want to buy a TV, I have to first convince someone with $500 in cash that they’d rather have my bonds than buy their own TV.

by SpicyLemonZest

8/20/2026 at 12:38:45 AM

No thats not true.

It operates under expectations - the more liquid the asset, the more likely you'll be OK with accepting it in the context of a trade. The discount is for illiquidity.

by 2dddd

8/20/2026 at 1:32:32 AM

> No thats not true.

I'd love to see someone buy a TV with those bonds.

by skeledrew

8/19/2026 at 11:01:34 PM

> But US can't default really.

It could. We'd just reorganize and call the old debts part of "Old US". This is all "New US".

by kotaKat

8/19/2026 at 11:47:37 PM

And that New US Dollar as a global currency? Not likely.

by pstuart

8/19/2026 at 9:00:43 PM

Unlimited spending will never cease as both parties are heavily incentivized to spend, pork barrel and defer desperately needed reform.

Social Security hurtles towards a cliff while it has a 'fix everything easily' button because no large scale reform is possible until it's the very last minute or far too late, then a sloppy and terrible solution is rammed through full of more pork.

by 0xy

8/19/2026 at 9:06:33 PM

This is correct yet also obscures an important point.

The popular narrative is that one party is the party of fiscal responsibility and the other is fiscally wasteful. But the data don't really bear that out, and it's arguable that the opposite may be true.

I'd contend that yes they both need to be incentivized as such, but also a necessary but not sufficient step is to halt the narrative that one party is the one who cuts the waste.

by jghn

8/19/2026 at 9:21:45 PM

The spending floodgate cannot be turned off or reduced, only directed towards the current admin's pet projects and away from the previous admin's pet projects. This is true for both parties.

by 0xy

8/19/2026 at 9:39:00 PM

You are conveniently ignoring the other half of finance - one party includes plans to actually pay for what they want to spend while the other cuts revenue to make rich people happy.

This is not the same, even though it may be tempting to cry “both sides” and throw your hands up.

by solid_fuel

8/20/2026 at 1:44:15 AM

Biden's infra plan was $550bn in new spending, which was offset in only $50bn of new revenue and $110bn of spending reductions. So, on net, it was massively inflationary and toasted the budget.

That was just one proposal with half a trillion.

by 0xy

8/20/2026 at 2:46:26 AM

Would you care to provide a citation for that?

According to any of the reporting I can find, the Inflation Reduction Act: "This bill would raise $737 billion in revenue while spending $437 billion. The remaining $300 billion would go toward deficit reduction." [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan#Inflati...

This is pretty much the same story with every major policy proposal from the Biden administration. They all included plans to cover the expected costs.

by solid_fuel

8/19/2026 at 9:42:49 PM

The “spending floodgates” have not materially changed direction in any of the last four administrations. Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, debt service and the military. Besides those five factors everything else is only a quarter of national spending and I think you will find if you look that those other categories don’t move around from admin to admin as much as you might think either.

by asdfasgasdgasdg

8/20/2026 at 12:11:24 AM

The spending floodgates have been reduced in the past. Under democratic presidents.

by preg_match

8/20/2026 at 1:47:04 AM

Clinton made a serious effort to pay down the debt, but none of the Democrats since did.

Clinton was also not a Democrat if you compare him to current Democrats. His admin was more right wing than the Trump administration. Clinton's crime bill, serious immigration crackdowns. I mean, Trump did partial criminal justice reform in his first term. That's the complete opposite of the Clinton crime bill, which skyrocketed incarceration.

Clinton's IIRAIRA bill laid out the blueprint currently being utilized for rapid deportations. In fact, 'expedited removal' is a core feature of the bill. Also, he architected the concept of administrative warrants currently being used by ICE for deportations.

by 0xy

8/19/2026 at 9:38:54 PM

I don't believe I said otherwise. And yet, your response doesn't at all touch on my other point.

by jghn

8/20/2026 at 2:22:44 PM

Empty yee coffers, peasants. The king demands it!

by hirvi74

8/19/2026 at 8:51:19 PM

Federal gov deficit = private sector savings.

by bubbleRefuge

8/19/2026 at 9:23:30 PM

Only in a closed economy.

by nwellnhof