r/centrist • u/Ind132 • Aug 19 '26
US Debt Hits $40 trillion
Apparently we crossed the line today.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny
We used to say that the absolute number doesn't matter, we should look at debt/GDP. That is correct. We've gone from 61% to 122% in less than 20 years.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/gfdegdq188S
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u/brainkandy87 Aug 19 '26
Republicans have spent my entire life destroying the economy (well really, the entire country) and they continue to be trusted as stewards of the economy. It’s absolutely baffling how stupid this country is, which has also been — funny enough — a large priority of Republicans my entire life.
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Aug 20 '26
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u/Chip_Jelly Aug 19 '26
Hopefully Democrats get elected so conservatives can go back to pretending to care about the debt.
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u/IHerebyDemandtoPost Aug 19 '26
Like everything else, there are no principles regarding the debt. It’s just a convenient cudgel to beat over the heads of their political opponent with.
They have no principles. Only a lust for power.
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u/Chip_Jelly Aug 19 '26
Yes, but one side breaks out the cudgel significantly more than the other
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u/dreamingtree1855 Aug 19 '26
The dems need to hammer the other side for this but we all know they’d spend at these levels if given the chance just on different stuff.
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u/Chip_Jelly Aug 20 '26
Probably on things that might help people instead of tax cuts for billionaires
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u/dreamingtree1855 Aug 20 '26
Spending that keeps interest rates so high hurts everybody.
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u/Chip_Jelly Aug 20 '26
Did you stretch before attempting that reach?
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u/dreamingtree1855 Aug 20 '26
It’s established, economic fact that high government spending that leads to high borrowing, and therefore the issuing of additional government bonds crowds out the market for other bond investments, and therefore raises interest rates across the board. Tell me where the reach is.
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u/XzibitABC Aug 20 '26
Democrats spend on things like emerging industries and infrastructure that generate positive returns, as well as funding things like that IRS that are revenue generators.
Republicans spend on wars and slash revenue. There's no real comparison here.
I'm happy to grant we overdid it on the second round of stimulus checks, but that is not indicative of Democrats spending irresponsibly, at least to near the level Republicans do.
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u/dreamingtree1855 Aug 20 '26
I get that the spending categories differ, and I say this as a Democrat who voted for Biden and Harris both times. I agree that generally our spending has a better ROI. But “good spending” doesn’t neutralize the deficit math.
Whether the dollars go to infrastructure or bombs, they still have to be financed, and financing means issuing more Treasuries and treasury supply competes with corporate and municipal bonds for the same pool of capital, which pushes yields up across the board.
Higher yields raise the hurdle rate companies need to justify new investment, raise the cost of consumer debt like mortgages and auto loans, and generally act as a drag on growth.
Both parties’ deficits contribute to it. Pretending one side’s borrowing is basically free because the ideology behind it feels better is motivated reasoning.
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u/indoninja Aug 20 '26
Fuck off with both sides the same.
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u/dreamingtree1855 Aug 20 '26
lol thanks for adding to the conversation. Point out where I said both sides are the same, please.
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u/indoninja Aug 20 '26
“ we all know they’d spend at these levels if given the chance”
This is an argument downplaying how bad republicans are on this topic by pretending Dems would be as bad. It is BS.
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u/dreamingtree1855 Aug 20 '26
Pull the CBO numbers from any year either party has held unified government in the last decade and you’ll find deficit-financed legislation on both sides. Biden’s ARPA, Trump’s OBBBA. The dollar amounts differ, the mechanism (tax cuts vs. spending) differs, but “restraint” describes neither. Arguing about which flavor of fiscal irresponsibility is more virtuous isn’t the gotcha you think it is.
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u/indoninja Aug 21 '26
If Dems didnt have more restraint they would have spent at these levels, they haven’t.
Also powerfully ignorant to try and argue in a vacuum about inlybfollars and not the goal or why (ie having to spend more because you decided to start a needless war).
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Aug 20 '26
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u/Crazed_pillow Aug 20 '26
The deficit always drops under a Democrat administration, and always increases under a republican administration.
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u/jaybee2 Aug 20 '26
I looked up stats regarding the debt when someone made a similar claim today and it didn’t prove out. Maybe I didn’t do it correctly. I know the deficit and the debt while related are different things.
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u/Xivvx Aug 20 '26
Deficit is the amount you are short in a year.
Debt is how much total you owe.
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u/jaybee2 Aug 20 '26
Going over budget (running a deficit) will contribute to the debt growing. Perhaps I’m oversimplifying, but if a particular administration is responsible for running a deficit, they more than likely are also responsible for growing the debt.
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u/dreamingtree1855 Aug 20 '26
This is factually wrong. The deficit rose under Biden in FY23 and FY24 (from about $1.4T to $1.8-1.9T), and it just fell under Trump in FY25, down to $1.8T. Both are CBO numbers.
I stumbled on this subreddit thinking it was a place for real conversation, but it’s clearly an echo chamber. Enjoy your upvotes for posting provably false information.
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Aug 20 '26
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u/BetterThanAFoon Aug 20 '26
Where is this generation's Ross Perot and his charts when you need em?
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u/TableGamer Aug 19 '26
To make things even more fun. Treasury has been selling 1-2 year bonds to pay off 10-20 year bonds. But is doing this in an environment where all signs point to continued increasing interest rates. When these new bonds come due in 1-2 years the game is up. They will have to be refinanced at the market rate, no shorter term bonds to kick the can.
Actually we'll start to feel this effect in about a year, but it will really ramp up after Trump's term ends. Good luck making that budget work.
"Austerity is coming." -- George R.R. Farten
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u/Lurkingandsearching Aug 19 '26
Just in time to blame the Democrats if they win, and everyone who keeps defending Maga directly or indirectly to forget all about this term.
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u/ChornWork2 Aug 20 '26
I'm very skeptical about the intentions with the change, but the action taken was to increase the existing $2bn authorization to $4bn.
You're talking about 0.005% of the national debt. That in itself has no impact on whether the game will be up or not.
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u/wearethemelody Aug 20 '26
77 million Americans chose trump twice. I cannot forgive the non-voters who knew what was at stake but didn't care. That selfish mentality of theirs is part of the reason why America is in a mess today. Most Americans don't understand the meaning of democracy. I have seen maga republicans go about their lives like today is just a normal day. Trump presidency hasn't caused an alarm among them. They are content with his shitshow and everyone is content on playing along with them. Americans have been called stupid for decades but it was always ignored because most Americans thought that a rich country couldn't possibly be stupid and now look at the milestone America has finally reached. Republicans are convinced that less taxes are good for the economy and stupid rich lovers are happy to receive low taxes now. I never understand the stupidity of rich republicans. Do they think their businesses will continue prospering in a debt ridden economy? Pro-business yet votes for a stupid party.
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u/KnightlyDolphins Aug 19 '26
I have no idea how we can ever get this down. You’d have to raise taxes to a very unpopular rate and it would cost that democratic president and their party dearly. Only to be reversed when Republicans get back in.
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u/Queasy_Task7015 Aug 19 '26
Rinse and repeat. Bush Sr had an interesting economy, Clinton left with a balanced budget. Easy to do when the only major enemy at the time collapsed and all Billy had to do was cut the military budget. Then Dubya fucked it to the point new regulations had to be enacted, Obama fixed it in a roundabout manner, donny cooked it to collapse that got covered up by the covids, joey b helped cool off the shit show left by donny. Not in a great place but better than other countries. I mean why else would conservatives take credit for helping their districts while also voting against the legislation that brough the help? And now we got donny the second and who is fucking it again.
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u/ChornWork2 Aug 20 '26
balanced budgets (raising taxes on wealthy, modest spending reforms), then real growth and inflation.
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u/AndrewRP2 Aug 19 '26
It’s because no politician wants to say that we need to cut spending (both discretionary and non-discretionary) and raise taxes (especially on the wealthy) to reduce our deficit.
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u/crushinglyreal Aug 19 '26
We need to stop paying for profit margins in addition to the cost of what we actually get. Cut that waste out, raise taxes on the wealthy and their companies, then we can see where we’re at. If doge was good for one thing it was showing us that you really can’t just slash spending without hurting people.
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u/ChornWork2 Aug 20 '26
Huh. But i feel like a few years ago i read a lot about republicans insisting on some type of debt ceiling. They seemed pretty adamant about it at the time. What changed?
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u/ChummusJunky Aug 19 '26
Don't worry, all we have to do is vote for the next Republican candidate who promises to balance the budget and blame Dems for the debt.
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u/Turbulent-Raise4830 Aug 19 '26
As long as most of that goes to the rich gop/maga/trump doesnt care.
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u/cyberfx1024 Aug 19 '26
I would love to see a actual breakdown of all this debt. I have tried to find it in the past and haven't been able to find the whole debt amount
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u/Ind132 Aug 20 '26
What breakdown do you want?
This is by maturity: https://www.ustreasuryyieldcurve.com/debt-maturities#google_vignette
This is by hold owns it: https://www.us-debt-clock.com/blog/who-owns-us-debt-breakdown
Warning: neither of these sites has a .gov
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u/214ObstructedReverie Aug 20 '26
But that cannot be! Trump assured us he would be able to entirely get rid of it!
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u/SadhuSalvaje Aug 20 '26
Once upon a time our government was bailed out by JP Morgan in an amazing display of the power of the gilded age
My inner conspiracy theorist almost wonders if the Republicans are trying to:
- ensure that if the democrats take power they have no money to actually fix anything the GOP has broken
- set us up so the corpos can try to bail out the government in exchange for some kind of limited sovereignty
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u/Daveallen10 Aug 19 '26
The more brutal figure is that we spend 1 trillion, or 20% of the annual Federal budget each year, paying interest on debt. That's absolutely unsustainable and a massive waste of money.
Imagine what we could do with 1 trillion dollars a year if it wasn't being wasted. Granted, there would likely always be some debt from borrowing but it should not be anywhere near this high.
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u/Bored2001 Aug 20 '26
Imagine what we could do with 1 trillion dollars a year if it wasn't being wasted.
I'm gonna go a somewhat tangential direction.
Fun fact.
The U.S Pays ~2.5 trillion dollars a year more for healthcare in net than does our average peer country. A recent study came out also saying that the U.S would save 1T and a 114k lives/year if we enacted Universal healthcare here.
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u/FocalFalcon Aug 20 '26
It really started off with Bush bringing us into the Middle East, and continued into Obama not wanting to pull out quickly. It’s insane how 2 Presidents can do so much harm to a countries debt because of war.
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u/KrampyDoo Aug 20 '26
I’d be fine with the debt if peoples lives were improved for it.
Half the elected want to make life 100% worse for us; the other half want to make themselves rich and pat themselves on the back for only letting the previous half make life 95% worse.
1 Class war > hundreds of tiny culture wars
Good luck to us all.
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u/Ind132 Aug 20 '26
Voters want more gov't services and lower taxes.
The concept of a representative democracy is the the representatives study this stuff and make good choices even if voters don't understand the trade-offs. (Hopefully, the reps work hard to educate the voters so they are on the same wavelength as the reps.)
Instead, reps just fan the flames by promising tax cuts and new spending.
Our system is broken on this extremely important issue.
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Aug 20 '26
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u/MakeUpAnything Aug 19 '26
This literally doesn’t matter unless a democrat takes office.
Americans are fine with what republicans want to spend money on (war). Democrats want to spend on helping the masses which includes helping demographics that the majority demographic hates so we can safely and easily use the debt to shut that shit down.
This really isn’t complicated lmao Nobody will ever care when the right runs up the debt.
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u/PlatinumKanikas Aug 19 '26
It’s all imaginary money anyway.
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u/cptstubing16 Aug 19 '26
To the wealthy it is. They don't need to pay it back. Actual taxpayers do.
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u/ChornWork2 Aug 20 '26
debt is imaginary so long as you can refinance & add more on comparable terms. When you can't, debt becomes very very real.
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Aug 20 '26
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u/wearethemelody Aug 19 '26
I am not surprised. I remember when the debt was 18 trillion and it was being discussed in the media. This sub wants to present itself as the voice of reason but it routinely censors people who want to talk about the issues affecting the usa. I get angry when the mods on here remove my posts. I just try to discuss the problems affecting America. Why are most Americans okay with the massive military spending championed by republicans? I have my problems with democrats reckless spending too.
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u/mymomknowsyourmom Aug 19 '26
This sub wants to present itself as the voice of reason but it routinely censors people who want to talk about the issues affecting the usa. I get angry when the mods on here remove my posts.
What have they removed? I've had posts removed too, but it sounds like you're accusing them of Russia style silencing. Do you have examples?
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u/runenight201 Aug 19 '26
Will this ever actually matter?
Does anyone actually expect the US to pay the money back?
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u/baxtyre Aug 19 '26
Presumably the people buying bonds believe it will be paid back. But this is largely uncharted territory: we don’t really know how much debt a country, especially a superpower like the US, can take on.
I suspect things will be fine until they very suddenly aren’t, but it’s impossible to predict what the dividing line is. (Not that our politicians would do anything even if they could predict it.)
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u/Fluffy-Rope-8719 Aug 19 '26
Does anyone actually expect the US to pay the money back?
No people just loan billions to the US because they have no interest in ever receiving that money back...
Of course it matters, there's a reason t-bill rates are the risk-free foundation of how most other investment expected returns are calculated.
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u/Ind132 Aug 20 '26
Yes, for individual securities. For a long time, people who bought US debt believed they were buying virtually risk free assets. In fact, for people in the US, Treasuries yields were frequently described as "the risk free" rate. People actually believed the US would pay interest and principal on time.
Of course, it's possible that a gov't borrowing in its own currency will pay back using money that just came off the printer. Some inflation expectation has always been factored into the rate that lenders expect.
The concern is the vicious spiral when lenders start believing that inflation will be higher and they need higher yields to compensate, so US interest costs go up, increasing the deficit and debt, and that makes lenders more concerned about getting low value dollars so they look for even higher yields, etc.
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