US to borrow $300B this week - largest since 2008

I hope no one is shocked by this. These tax cuts are going to drown us.

I got emails from my Repub senator and representative asking if my taxes had gone down, or if I'd received a bonus from my employer.

LOL
I didn't get a bonus from my employer. Yeah, my taxes went down--by a whopping $7 every pay period (every two weeks). Woo hoo! What a windfall!

What a mess. If I were EXTREMELY intellectually curious, I'd read up on what conservative news outlets are reporting, but I see nothing of this from conservative family & friends on social media, though a few of them have decided to join in on slamming victims of mass shootings.

This makes me want to vomit.

THIS!! I will never understand why compromising is seen as 'weak' and not lauded as doing what's best for the country, which is to get legislation actually PASSED. After all, that IS the main objective of their job, passing legislation. right?

I don't care what side anyone is on.. Rep and Dem politicians are all crooked in my book. If a Dem was in office and did the same thing.. then what would the outrage be? (I am SO not political but I would be curious how people in general would spin it.)

I'm independent so I have no beef with either side.

I don’t know how it works for government, but big businesses use debt to their advantage. They use money that is not theirs to make more money. And borrowing grows the amount of money in the economy. Business also want some debt so they are not a target for takeovers. I don’t know how much of this holds for the government though. I know local and state governments borrow funds all the time for local projects.

But I don’t like that we just cut taxes so now we have to borrow. Doesn’t make sense! And my tax guy said our taxes will probably go up for the 2018 tax filing.

I was not in favor of the tax cuts because as I said in other threads, it is heavily skewed in favor of corporations and the very wealthy.  


Although it’s true that deficit spending (which adds to sovereign debt) boosts the economy, over the long term, if we continue growing the debt, our interest payments alone will become a massive burden, if it isn’t already. At the end of the day, no matter how noble our goals are, we are borrowing more than we can reasonably service. The current US debt-to-GDP ratio is 104%. The sources from whom we can borrow are beginning to show stress or slack. The Social Security Trust Fund, which is one of our biggest lenders will soon face a reckoning as more and more Boomers are retiring. China and Japan, two of our biggest debt-holders are beginning to scale back on buying US Treasuries, and could, at any time, demand higher interest payments. Do we just keep borrowing? Do we just keep raising the debt ceiling? In my view, deficit spending is justifiable only in recessionary times. When our economy is in the range it is now, there is no justification for it. Just my opinion, of course.

Spending caps and a balance budget are nice but before we get there some work needs to be done before hand.

The infrastructure has been ignored way too long.  Any work that has been is being done is because of what I call “if we don’t do something this dam, bridge, electrical grid etc is going to fail” mode.  So we are way behind which means the work needs to be done now and regardless of the cost.

trump’s plan of having private companies “invest” in various projects is a non starter for me.  When one invests in something they expect a return on that investment which would mean toll roads and other charges so these private investors can recoup from their investments.  Yes I get there are toll roads in parts of the country but aren’t they state controlled?  If so the citizens can vote out those who go crazy with the tolls.  Kind of hard to do with private companies.

The other thing we need to invest in are the people.  At the end of January there were 6.3 M job openings.  You have employers saying they can’t find people to do some of these jobs because they don’t have skills or they can’t pass a drug test.   We are in a modern version of an industrial revolution.  

Hillary made some comments in India that got people all railed up, even some Democrats.  But there was a lot of truth in what she said.  Instead everyone jumping up and down about what she said,  the questions that should asked are how do we, as a country, move some of what is happening on both coasts to the mid-west?  How do we, as a country, move people from below the poverty level into the middle class and make sure they have the skills they need to get these?  How do we, as a country, beat this opioid epidemic?    Guidance and funding should come from the Feds. If, we as a country, can get this done, a bigger middle class means more income to the feds, the states, and the cities.  It also means spending less money on health care and the various safety nets.  And it actually helps in the over all security of the country.  And makes it easier to obtain a balance budget.

You think Trump incurred all of this debt? We, the people, incurred all this debt by allowing the out of control spending. Let's be honest here. Your statement "the economy was doing fine for most people so there was no reason for those tax cuts and no reason to incur this debt" is BS. I'm guessing you get a tax return each year. You can always donate it back to the government if you believe what you're posting. 

#MAGA

🙄