Spending, the National Debt, and Biden Voters

[Obsidian Edge]

The House just passed the "Build Back Better" bill by a narrow margin. If passed in the Senate, the new bill is expected to add at least $1.7 trillion in additional spending. This is in addition to the touted 1.2 trillion "infrastructure" bill that was signed into law 4 days ago, and the COVID spending bills that allocated up to 3.92 trillion in spending to "combat the pandemic." This amounts to almost 7 trillion in new spending over the last year, a truly breathtaking figure. Considering that these sorts of measures often end up costing far more than estimated, even if you only factor in interest on debt incurred, this is likely to rise further. For some perspective, the U.S. spent approximately $2.4 trillion, over a ~20 year period, on the entire global war on terror. Our debt currently stands at ~29 trillion.

In the spirit of open dialogue, I would really like to hear from people who voted for Biden. What do you think of this? Were you aware this kind of spending was occurring on your behalf? Do you support this? What do you think this means for the fiscal solvency of the country going forward? I'm not asking out of spite. I legitimately want to know your justification(s).

Tangentially, how does all of this spending sit with you given that I assume you opposed Trump's border wall? Wasn't the main criticism that it cost too much at $10 billion? Do you realize that the amount of money we spent in the last 12 months could have built 714 full-sized border walls spanning from San Diego, CA to Harlingen, TX?

You should be very concerned that the U.S. financial system is sprinting toward bankruptcy at this rate, and that's bad for everyone.

[sdsuball]

Nov 19, 2021 12:10:09 GMT -8 Obsidian Edge said:

The House just passed the "Build Back Better" bill by a narrow margin. If passed in the Senate, the new bill is expected to add at least $1.7 trillion in additional spending. This is in addition to the touted 1.2 trillion "infrastructure" bill that was signed into law 4 days ago, and the COVID spending bills that allocated up to 3.92 trillion in spending to "combat the pandemic." This amounts to almost 7 trillion in new spending over the last year, a truly breathtaking figure. Considering that these sorts of measures often end up costing far more than estimated, even if you only factor in interest on debt incurred, this is likely to rise further. For some perspective, the U.S. spent approximately $2.4 trillion, over a ~20 year period, on the entire global war on terror. Our debt currently stands at ~29 trillion.

In the spirit of open dialogue, I would really like to hear from people who voted for Biden. What do you think of this? Were you aware this kind of spending was occurring on your behalf? Do you support this? What do you think this means for the fiscal solvency of the country going forward? I'm not asking out of spite. I legitimately want to know your justification(s).

Tangentially, how does all of this spending sit with you given that I assume you opposed Trump's border wall? Wasn't the main criticism that it cost too much at $10 billion? Do you realize that the amount of money we spent in the last 12 months could have built 714 full-sized border walls spanning from San Diego, CA to Harlingen, TX?

You should be very concerned that the U.S. financial system is sprinting toward bankruptcy at this rate, and that's bad for everyone.

I definitely support it. The government spending is the only thing that has kept our economy out of a deep recession. Austerity causes worse economic pain then watering down the value of the dollar.
The worst mistake that we made during the Great Recession was not spending more then to buoy the economy. I'm a big proponent of Keynesian economics, in case you can't tell.
Bankruptcy is not a legitimate concern considering the size of the debt compared to the size of the US economy. With low interest bonds to pay the money back, we will be better off spending then shrinking the size of the US economy by curtailing spending.
Furthermore, the infrastructure bill specifically has been long overdue. Our infrastructure is terrible in our country compared to other first world countries. I'm glad to see that we are investing in ourselves as a country.

[Obsidian Edge]

"The government spending is the only thing that has kept our economy out of a deep recession. Austerity causes worse economic pain then watering down the value of the dollar."

Spending more money to stave off recession just makes the inevitable market correction worse. It's like taking an ever larger dose of heroin to avoid the pain of withdrawal. At some point the individual will eventually have to stop and experience an even more painful withdrawal, or they die.

What's more, spending money the government doesn't have forces the government to print more money and inject it into the marketplace causing inflation. Rampant inflation causes depression because eventually the people can't buy anything and their money becomes worthless.

"Bankruptcy is not a legitimate concern considering the size of the debt compared to the size of the US economy."

That's just not true. Our Debt to GDP ratio is now above 128%, putting us in Greek Debt Crisis territory. Additional spending will make this even worse, and will likely be the loaded barbell to break the camel's back. tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp

"Furthermore, the infrastructure bill specifically has been long overdue."

It's funny you think that this bill will be going to infrastructure. 80-90% of this money will not go to "rebuilding roads." But in any case, if you want to spend the money on roads, fine, but you need to cut spending from somewhere else because we don't have the money otherwise. You can't remodel your kitchen when you don't have money for groceries.

[sdsuball]

Nov 20, 2021 9:35:46 GMT -8 Obsidian Edge said:

"The government spending is the only thing that has kept our economy out of a deep recession. Austerity causes worse economic pain then watering down the value of the dollar."

Spending more money to stave off recession just makes the inevitable market correction worse. It's like taking an ever larger dose of heroin to avoid the pain of withdrawal. At some point the individual will eventually have to stop and experience an even more painful withdrawal, or they die.

What's more, spending money the government doesn't have forces the government to print more money and inject it into the marketplace causing inflation. Rampant inflation causes depression because eventually the people can't buy anything and their money becomes worthless.

"Bankruptcy is not a legitimate concern considering the size of the debt compared to the size of the US economy."

That's just not true. Our Debt to GDP ratio is now above 128%, putting us in Greek Debt Crisis territory. Additional spending will make this even worse, and will likely be the loaded barbell to break the camel's back. tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp

"Furthermore, the infrastructure bill specifically has been long overdue."

It's funny you think that this bill will be going to infrastructure. 80-90% of this money will not go to "rebuilding roads." But in any case, if you want to spend the money on roads, fine, but you need to cut spending from somewhere else because we don't have the money otherwise. You can't remodel your kitchen when you don't have money for groceries.

"Spending more money to stave off recession just makes the inevitable market correction worse. It's like taking an ever larger dose of heroin to avoid the pain of withdrawal. At some point the individual will eventually have to stop and experience an even more painful withdrawal, or they die."

Uh no, look at what happened to our economy with the Great Recession. It took forever for jobs and the economy to regrow.

Bankruptcy isn't a legitimate concern. Our debt levels were similar at the end of WWII (119%). Additionally, our debt level grew from 105% to 125% from 2016 to 2020 under Trump.
It went from 68% to 105% under eight years of Obama. It went from 55% to 68% under Bush. The last president to reduce the debt level was Clinton, from 61% to 55%.
The debt issue is rather non-partisan - both parties leadership has been in favor of raising debt levels. www.thebalance.com/national-debt-by-year-compared-to-gdp-and-major-events-3306287

There is more to infrastructure then just roads. Here is a breakdown of the spending on the bill:

110B Roads and Bridges
39B Public Transit
66B Railways
73B Power Grids
7.5B Electric Vehicles
7.5B Electric Buses, Ferries
42B Airports, Waterways
50B Climate Change Resilience
55B Drinking Water
65B Broadband Internet
21B Environmental Remediation
11B Transportation Safety

www.ey.com/en_us/infrastructure-investment-and-jobs-act?WT.mc_id=10816686&AA.tsrc=paidsearch&gclid=CjwKCAiA1uKMBhAGEiwAxzvX9x9l2bZP8rmQcXNVWuzpGxbzCjpqMZGxRhRX602HMsb-dCehfuk0AhoCn1kQAvD_BwE


"But in any case, if you want to spend the money on roads, fine, but you need to cut spending from somewhere else because we don't have the money otherwise. You can't remodel your kitchen when you don't have money for groceries."

Are you a Republican? (For now I will assume that you are) It's funny how Republicans are comfortable with deficit spending when they are in power, and are for deficit spending if deficit spending means cutting taxes, but are not okay with deficit spending when the size of the government is increased, and taxation levels stay the same or are increased. It (from an outside perspective) seems like they are in favor of lower taxes and smaller government, then they actually care/don't care about debt spending.

To use an analogy, since you used a disturbing heroin analogy (which frankly I don't appreciate, it's no joke that 100,000 Americans die every year from opiate addiction), the Republican leadership does the equivalent of diner dashing: "We are going to cut taxes, which will increase tax revenue" they say. Then at the end of the president's term, when debt levels have increased, they don't foot the bill - they don't pay down the debt! Then they blame the next Democratic leader for the super high debt levels!

The other side of the coin, re. the debt levels, is this: Why can't our country pass more progressive tax structures that tax the super wealthy (10/50/100M+, 1B+)?
This is more of a Republican then Democratic issue, but it's still somewhat non-partisan. Let's face it - most senators in this country enjoy being written $10,000 campaign donations by wealthy people.
Most Republican and most Democratic senators enjoy 10K checks by super wealthy people. That's a big part of our debt issue today. Most politicians are bought/influenced by the super wealthy in America.

[Obsidian Edge]

"Uh no, look at what happened to our economy with the Great Recession. It took forever for jobs and the economy to regrow."

Exactly. It did take forever in large part because the individual running the country for 8 years was implementing the exact policies you are advocating for: massive infusions of liquidity (Quantitative Easing) combined with huge expansions of federal spending. You even admit that our debt, "went from 68% to 105% under eight years of Obama." So by your own "Keynesian" perspective, we should have been enormously better off and made an astonishing recovery under Obama. But like you admit, we didn't.


"Bankruptcy isn't a legitimate concern. Our debt levels were similar at the end of WWII (119%). Additionally, our debt level grew from 105% to 125% from 2016 to 2020 under Trump. It went from 68% to 105% under eight years of Obama. It went from 55% to 68% under Bush. The last president to reduce the debt level was Clinton, from 61% to 55%."

How do you not think bankruptcy is an issue and then proceed to undermine your point with sentence after sentence showing an exponential increase in debt over the last 20 years? And your comparing our current debt level with WW2 and you think everything's fine? The one other time in U.S. history where we had just fought a world war and it was 10% less than what we have now?

Yes, the debt has risen under all presidents in the last 20 years. All presidents should have and can do more to try and fix it - Republican or Democrat.


"There is more to infrastructure then just roads. Here is a breakdown of the spending on the bill"


It really doesn't matter what they will spend the money on even if 100% of it went to all the items you listed (which it won't, most will go to pork). We don't have the money unless you make cuts elsewhere.

"To use an analogy, since you used a disturbing heroin analogy (which frankly I don't appreciate, it's no joke that 100,000 Americans die every year from opiate addiction), the Republican leadership does the equivalent of diner dashing: "We are going to cut taxes, which will increase tax revenue" they say. Then at the end of the president's term, when debt levels have increased, they don't foot the bill - they don't pay down the debt! Then they blame the next Democratic leader for the super high debt levels!"

I'm not making a joke. This is a serious matter. Your analogy places all the blame on Republicans? Both Bush and Obama's actions directly led to a huge increase in debt. Trump's administration wasn't going to add to the debt substantially until the COVID lockdowns, which I have always been completely against and fault Trump for. That said, I do give enormous credit to Trump as he was the first President since Reagan to orient his economic policies to actual working American's instead of global/Wall Street interests. Remember when energy was cheap and inflation was between 1-2%?


"The other side of the coin, re. the debt levels, is this: Why can't our country pass more progressive tax structures that tax the super wealthy (10/50/100M+, 1B+)?

This is more of a Republican then Democratic issue, but it's still somewhat non-partisan. Let's face it - most senators in this country enjoy being written $10,000 campaign donations by wealthy people. Most Republican and most Democratic senators enjoy 10K checks by super wealthy people. That's a big part of our debt issue today. Most politicians are bought/influenced by the super wealthy in America."

Because the ultra wealthy control the political class (both establishment Republicans and virtually all Democrats). That's why. The crazy part is that even with the ultra wealthy abusing tax loopholes to pay <10% effective tax rates, they still provide 50+% of the taxes. The solution is to rewrite the tax code to abolish loopholes, exemptions, and write-offs and implement a flat tax (9-12%) on private income, federal sales, and corporate income. Then bake in that no one part of specified tax categories can increase without all other parts also increasing and requiring 2/3 of Congress. Or something along those lines. Reduce the tax code to less than a dozen pages instead of the thousands it currently is.

[uwphoto]

Nov 19, 2021 12:10:09 GMT -8 Obsidian Edge said:

The House just passed the "Build Back Better" bill by a narrow margin. If passed in the Senate, the new bill is expected to add at least $1.7 trillion in additional spending. This is in addition to the touted 1.2 trillion "infrastructure" bill that was signed into law 4 days ago, and the COVID spending bills that allocated up to 3.92 trillion in spending to "combat the pandemic." This amounts to almost 7 trillion in new spending over the last year, a truly breathtaking figure. Considering that these sorts of measures often end up costing far more than estimated, even if you only factor in interest on debt incurred, this is likely to rise further. For some perspective, the U.S. spent approximately $2.4 trillion, over a ~20 year period, on the entire global war on terror. Our debt currently stands at ~29 trillion.

In the spirit of open dialogue, I would really like to hear from people who voted for Biden. What do you think of this? Were you aware this kind of spending was occurring on your behalf? Do you support this? What do you think this means for the fiscal solvency of the country going forward? I'm not asking out of spite. I legitimately want to know your justification(s).

Tangentially, how does all of this spending sit with you given that I assume you opposed Trump's border wall? Wasn't the main criticism that it cost too much at $10 billion? Do you realize that the amount of money we spent in the last 12 months could have built 714 full-sized border walls spanning from San Diego, CA to Harlingen, TX?

You should be very concerned that the U.S. financial system is sprinting toward bankruptcy at this rate, and that's bad for everyone.

Haha.. Border wall.  I assume you were in favor?  Big Republican push... "the Border Wall stops the flow of drugs into the US".  Well, the majority were coming through ports of call,  and you can buy a drone (waterproof) on Amazon with a 10lb. payload for $1800.     

[Obsidian Edge]

Nov 21, 2021 11:05:27 GMT -8 uwphoto said:

Nov 19, 2021 12:10:09 GMT -8 Obsidian Edge said:

The House just passed the "Build Back Better" bill by a narrow margin. If passed in the Senate, the new bill is expected to add at least $1.7 trillion in additional spending. This is in addition to the touted 1.2 trillion "infrastructure" bill that was signed into law 4 days ago, and the COVID spending bills that allocated up to 3.92 trillion in spending to "combat the pandemic." This amounts to almost 7 trillion in new spending over the last year, a truly breathtaking figure. Considering that these sorts of measures often end up costing far more than estimated, even if you only factor in interest on debt incurred, this is likely to rise further. For some perspective, the U.S. spent approximately $2.4 trillion, over a ~20 year period, on the entire global war on terror. Our debt currently stands at ~29 trillion.

In the spirit of open dialogue, I would really like to hear from people who voted for Biden. What do you think of this? Were you aware this kind of spending was occurring on your behalf? Do you support this? What do you think this means for the fiscal solvency of the country going forward? I'm not asking out of spite. I legitimately want to know your justification(s).

Tangentially, how does all of this spending sit with you given that I assume you opposed Trump's border wall? Wasn't the main criticism that it cost too much at $10 billion? Do you realize that the amount of money we spent in the last 12 months could have built 714 full-sized border walls spanning from San Diego, CA to Harlingen, TX?

You should be very concerned that the U.S. financial system is sprinting toward bankruptcy at this rate, and that's bad for everyone.

Haha.. Border wall.  I assume you were in favor?  Big Republican push... "the Border Wall stops the flow of drugs into the US".  Well, the majority were coming through ports of call,  and you can buy a drone (waterproof) on Amazon with a 10lb. payload for $1800.

Yes I was in favor of the border wall. The big push wasn't to stop illegal drugs. It was to stop illegal people crossing the border. And yes, a wall would be effective at doing that. www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/new-border-wall-blocks-90-of-illegal-crossings-up-from-just-10

That should be pretty obvious though. A physical barrier makes crossing a geographic location harder.

[uwphoto]

Nov 21, 2021 11:17:13 GMT -8 Obsidian Edge said:

Nov 21, 2021 11:05:27 GMT -8 uwphoto said:

Haha.. Border wall.  I assume you were in favor?  Big Republican push... "the Border Wall stops the flow of drugs into the US".  Well, the majority were coming through ports of call,  and you can buy a drone (waterproof) on Amazon with a 10lb. payload for $1800.

Yes I was in favor of the border wall. The big push wasn't to stop illegal drugs. It was to stop illegal people crossing the border. And yes, a wall would be effective at doing that. www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/new-border-wall-blocks-90-of-illegal-crossings-up-from-just-10

That should be pretty obvious though. A physical barrier makes crossing a geographic location harder.

I just think there are better technologies in the modern world.  First, there are geographical zones where you can't build a wall.  You will notice the wall ending just past Jacumba (you can see it from the I-8), where it starts to climb into the mountains and the "Valley of the Moon".  Sure, makes sense in some selected areas near population centers ie: Tijuana.  I think you just can't wall off the entire US as a fix... and that's how it was being marketed.  There is more nuance to it, but I guess most of the US population cannot deal with nuance, detail and critical thought.  Additionally, I believe you have to leave some "corridors" for wildlife travel.  That would be desert bighorn, pronghorn, cougars, jaguar etc.  We have already damaged the environment so much that animals and plants that were common just 60 years ago are either rare or extirpated over large geographical zones.

[sdsuball]

Nov 20, 2021 14:51:45 GMT -8 Obsidian Edge said:

"Uh no, look at what happened to our economy with the Great Recession. It took forever for jobs and the economy to regrow."

Exactly. It did take forever in large part because the individual running the country for 8 years was implementing the exact policies you are advocating for: massive infusions of liquidity (Quantitative Easing) combined with huge expansions of federal spending. You even admit that our debt, "went from 68% to 105% under eight years of Obama." So by your own "Keynesian" perspective, we should have been enormously better off and made an astonishing recovery under Obama. But like you admit, we didn't.


"Bankruptcy isn't a legitimate concern. Our debt levels were similar at the end of WWII (119%). Additionally, our debt level grew from 105% to 125% from 2016 to 2020 under Trump. It went from 68% to 105% under eight years of Obama. It went from 55% to 68% under Bush. The last president to reduce the debt level was Clinton, from 61% to 55%."

How do you not think bankruptcy is an issue and then proceed to undermine your point with sentence after sentence showing an exponential increase in debt over the last 20 years? And your comparing our current debt level with WW2 and you think everything's fine? The one other time in U.S. history where we had just fought a world war and it was 10% less than what we have now?

Yes, the debt has risen under all presidents in the last 20 years. All presidents should have and can do more to try and fix it - Republican or Democrat.


"There is more to infrastructure then just roads. Here is a breakdown of the spending on the bill"


It really doesn't matter what they will spend the money on even if 100% of it went to all the items you listed (which it won't, most will go to pork). We don't have the money unless you make cuts elsewhere.

"To use an analogy, since you used a disturbing heroin analogy (which frankly I don't appreciate, it's no joke that 100,000 Americans die every year from opiate addiction), the Republican leadership does the equivalent of diner dashing: "We are going to cut taxes, which will increase tax revenue" they say. Then at the end of the president's term, when debt levels have increased, they don't foot the bill - they don't pay down the debt! Then they blame the next Democratic leader for the super high debt levels!"

I'm not making a joke. This is a serious matter. Your analogy places all the blame on Republicans? Both Bush and Obama's actions directly led to a huge increase in debt. Trump's administration wasn't going to add to the debt substantially until the COVID lockdowns, which I have always been completely against and fault Trump for. That said, I do give enormous credit to Trump as he was the first President since Reagan to orient his economic policies to actual working American's instead of global/Wall Street interests. Remember when energy was cheap and inflation was between 1-2%?


"The other side of the coin, re. the debt levels, is this: Why can't our country pass more progressive tax structures that tax the super wealthy (10/50/100M+, 1B+)?

This is more of a Republican then Democratic issue, but it's still somewhat non-partisan. Let's face it - most senators in this country enjoy being written $10,000 campaign donations by wealthy people. Most Republican and most Democratic senators enjoy 10K checks by super wealthy people. That's a big part of our debt issue today. Most politicians are bought/influenced by the super wealthy in America."

Because the ultra wealthy control the political class (both establishment Republicans and virtually all Democrats). That's why. The crazy part is that even with the ultra wealthy abusing tax loopholes to pay <10% effective tax rates, they still provide 50+% of the taxes. The solution is to rewrite the tax code to abolish loopholes, exemptions, and write-offs and implement a flat tax (9-12%) on private income, federal sales, and corporate income. Then bake in that no one part of specified tax categories can increase without all other parts also increasing and requiring 2/3 of Congress. Or something along those lines. Reduce the tax code to less than a dozen pages instead of the thousands it currently is.

"Exactly. It did take forever in large part because the individual running the country for 8 years was implementing the exact policies you are advocating for: massive infusions of liquidity (Quantitative Easing) combined with huge expansions of federal spending. You even admit that our debt, "went from 68% to 105% under eight years of Obama." So by your own "Keynesian" perspective, we should have been enormously better off and made an astonishing recovery under Obama. But like you admit, we didn't."

No, Congress would not allow him to pass any sort of large stimulus. Congress is in control of the purse strings now, just like they were in the Obama and Trump era's. Just as they always are.
It only went from 68% to 82% between 2008 and 2009. That's not enough.

If we had gone from 68% to 105% between 2008 and 2009, we would have had a much quicker recovery. In fact, I believe that Obama tried to pass an Infrastructure bill during his presidency that didn't pass over partisan bickering. Improving our infrastructure when a lot of people were jobless at the time would have been perfect.

Regarding the infrastructure bill, you are saying that the bill doesn't improve our infrastructure. That's simply not true.
Corporations take out loans and have debt. Do you find it morally objectionable for a government to do so, but not a business?

I'm sorry, how did Trump's corporate tax cut help working class Americans?
It seems like it (primarily) helped wealthy owners of corporations.
Like people on Wall Street, who own pieces of the corporations who's taxes were lowered.
You know, Wall Street interests.

The reason why I'm calling out Republicans is because of the Republican narrative around taxes and budget cuts is filled with falsehoods.
Here is the narrative again:

1. Lowering tax rates grows the economy, increasing the tax base and the amount of tax revenue collected (this has been disproven both in the Reagan and Trump presidencies)

2. Republicans like to portray themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility - when in reality, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are fiscally responsible.

The reason specifically why I'm calling out the lack of an ultra wealthy tax is because:

1. Democrats time and time again campaign on expanded government programs.

2. They campaign to pay for it with increases on taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

3. Congress, time and time again, cuts the ultra wealthy tax out of the bill but passes a watered down version of the program.

4. The real issue (with all of this, from both Democrats and Republicans) is that (like you said) Congress is bought by moneyed interests.

5. So when you say something like, "Biden supporters, what do you think of Biden's watered down bills that passed that increases our national deficit"? I think, yeah I liked Biden's bills better when they increased taxes on the wealthy. f x x x the Senate (Democrats and Republicans both). Blaming Biden for it seems absurd. Congress, and specifically the Senate (because they only have to run every 6 years) is the biggest issue.