National debt passed 40 trillion thus week. 42 percent of income taxes pay for interest on the debt

Of course the academics and smart people say the best way to approach this is spending cuts and tax increases. The ideologues and polemics from both sides say to pick one of those and say screw it

America will have to print more money to pay off the nation debt of 40 trillion. Maybe crypto currency would be another way without America going bankrupt.

Eisenhower had a similar debt ratio when he took office. He paid it by increasing the tax rate for the rich to 90 percent.

linate wrote:

The usa spends 7 trillion a year. 2.8 trillion is social security and Medicare which are mostly funded through payroll taxes. 1.8 trillion is the deficit. The rest is everything else. 1 trillion is interest on debt

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump stated that he could eliminate the country's roughly $19 trillion national debt over a period of eight years, he claimed it could be done "very easily and very quickly".

During Trump’s first term the U.S. gross national debt increased by approximately $7.8 trillion (a 41% increase)

During Trump's second term, the National debt has gone up by $3.8 trillion so far, (a 10.6% increase in only one year and seven months)

I guess turning the White House into a golden palace fit for King Donald was expensive.

Oh well, at least he took away Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from over1.5 million children, that should help pay for some of his vanity projects.

And the top 5% of earners are paying about 62% share of that interest. That includes me. If it does not also include you, I'd just as soon you pay more of your "fair share." That's what "fair" really means, isn't it?

Debby,

Printing money with nothing to back it up, and there isn't, that's just increases the national debt more than it should be. We went off the gold standard under Nixon; one reason why I didn't vote for the guy, but he didn't replace it with anything but depending on "the full faith and credit of the United States." What's that worth compared to Gold? In 1972, it was $35/oz.

In fact, healthcare alone is literally the budget gap.

It's probably more than that, but I agree with everything you said

The simplest solution is to just print money, like USA was doing so far.

I hope you're not serious.

So economy grew while debt stayed same.

There is no debt that does not collect interest, unless the debt owner chooses to delete it for a short period, like a short-term promotional credit card offer.

Take Trump’s example. Trump filed bankruptcies 7 times then switched to crypto currency to solve his debt problems.

The simplest solution is to just ignore it.

Which seems to be the general ongoing strategy.

I don't think that the Martians will be calling in the debt anytime soon.

China will not let America forget the 40 trillion national debt. China has already started dumping US treasury bonds and switching to gold.

You need something to compare to instead of just complaining taxes are high for the rich already. Historically taxes were higher in the usa for the wealthy. If it was good enough to get our country to where we are its good enough now right? Your generation raised taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the upper class. How is that fair? If you want a mega military and mega healthcare instead of national health care that costs half as much like the rest of the world you have to fund it. Our welfare spending is well below the rest of the developed world while we have similar tax and expense situation so you cant really blame welfare. Completely immoral and idiotic to borrow money from future generations and run up debt to give mega tax cuts to the rich. If it wasnt for reagan bush and trumps tax cuts our debt would be half of what it is and manageable. Completely immoral to say, I got mine, while borrowing to fund your lifestyle while fucking up the budget then making future generations deal with it.

The national debt will double from 40 trillion to 80 trillion in 10 years.

Your generation raised taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the upper class. How is that fair?

And you are ignoring that Donald Trump is one of my generation. [a boomer, he's only three years older than I am], and it was his campaign to lower taxes for everybody, not just the rich, or the middle class. Get it? It's not a generational thing now.

If you want a mega military and mega healthcare instead of national health care that costs half as much like the rest of the world you have to fund it. 

When did I say that's what I want? Never. And we're the 3rd largest population in the world, behind only India and China. India does not have a healthcare for all program. Some claim China has healthcare for all, but they really claim 95% have it. Same for basic infrastructure, settled primarily along the eastern seaboard and river basins. But it's not free total healthcare coverage for all, either. The fact is that 43% of China's total landmass, along the east coast of China. All the people in the other 47% of China only have basic coverage. Patients there still pay a significant share of medical bills using their own money for advanced treatments or specific drugs, and only if they can.

In the US, most residents live within 4-6 miles of a hospital. Average rural live within 10 miles of a hospital. No one is turned away from at least basic medical care. Neither China nor India can say that for all of their populations

Except, trumps tax cut was originally for everyone, but was made permanent only fir the rich. He then started cutting welfare and giving it dollar for dollar for the rich. And no matter who its for, your point is irrelevant, cause politicians shouldn't n e borrowing money to give tax cuts. You ignore that the last three presidents due to their tax cuts are responsible for half our debt.

On the healthcare point, the usa doesnt limit healthcare based on its ability to provide the care to a few in remote areas. It denies it based on whether their state's expanded medicaid and anyone else due to them earning too much to qualify. So theres no reason we can't have a univrrsal or close to it system. And India does offer univeral Healthcare or damn close to it. They just dont have single payer... but the thing is, neither do most developed countries yet they all provide universal coverage at half our cost. India and China dont cost anywhere near 18 percent of their gdp like us yet cover almost everyone at half the cost. Point, we could cover almost everyone with people responsible for edge stuff at half our current cost.

And ultimately this is all a distraction. The ultimate point is that rich people shouldn't be paying less than they used to while putting it the middle class and we shouldn't be borrowing money to pay for it all. Ive had this discussion before with you and I dont know why you think running the debt up is OK for tax cuts, you never give a coherent answer I think you just don't want to admit your ideas are wildly irresponsible

China has a 21 trillion dollar national debt.

Last hear it was 13 trillion national debt or possibly 18 trillion.

I've been talking about it several years ago. I thought Trump was going to tackle the problem but it was all the contrary.

It's better that this bubble bursts already. The economy system should collapse so that we see we need a better system, not fkn communism or socialism of course.

Trump is isolating America by going against NATO, Canada, Greenland and South American Cuba, Venezuela as well as war in Iran. It’s a bad situation to go broke without and allies.

You need something to compare to instead of just complaining taxes are high for the rich already. Historically taxes were higher in the usa for the wealthy. If it was good enough to get our country to where we are its good enough now right? Your generation raised taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the upper class. How is that fair? If you want a mega military and mega healthcare instead of national health care that costs half as much like the rest of the world you have to fund it. Our welfare spending is well below the rest of the developed world while we have similar tax and expense situation so you cant really blame welfare. Completely immoral and idiotic to borrow money from future generations and run up debt to give mega tax cuts to the rich. If it wasnt for reagan bush and trumps tax cuts our debt would be half of what it is and manageable. Completely immoral to say, I got mine, while borrowing to fund your lifestyle while fucking up the budget then making future generations deal with it.

USA currently has one of, if not the most progressive tax scale in the civilized world.

Let's see what AI thinks:

Yep. Let's fully grant his fantasy and put it next to the actual debt numbers.

In 2023, the top 1% reported about $3.135 trillion of AGI and already paid about $823 billion in federal individual income taxes.

So imagine:

The government does something vastly more extreme than “tax the rich more”:

It takes 100% of every dollar of the top 1%'s income after their existing federal income tax.

That gives approximately:

$ 3.135 T- $ 0.823 T = $ 2.31 trillion.

Now compare that with today's fiscal situation:

DollarsFantasy confiscation from top 1%

$2.31T

2026 annual federal deficit

$1.9T

Debt held by public

~$32T

Current gross national debt

~$40T

CBO puts the 2026 deficit at $1.9 trillion and debt held by the public at about $32.1 trillion. Gross national debt just crossed $40 trillion this month.

So under the completely impossible fantasy:

Confiscating essentially the entire annual income of the richest 1% would raise about $2.3 trillion.

That would cover roughly one year's current deficit plus ~$400 billion.

If instead you devoted every penny to the existing $40 trillion gross debt, you'd eliminate only about:

402.31​≈5.8%​You'd still owe roughly:

$37.7 trillion. And then comes the killer: you can't do it again next year, because nobody is going to earn millions of dollars of taxable income when the government takes 100% of it. 😂

So even after granting the most ridiculous possible version of “tax the rich”, we've demonstrated something useful: there's enough money there to make a major dent in a SINGLE annual deficit, but nowhere remotely close to enough to pay off the accumulated national debt. And the structural deficit still has to be solved year after year.

I've been talking about it several years ago. I thought Trump was going to tackle the problem but it was all the contrary.

Trump is but one branch of a massive weedbed of government. Violence is the only solution for reform at this point.

Ive done these analysis before. All the usa needs to do is a little bit of everything approach. Cut spending 10 percent increase current taxes 10 percent. Implement wealth taxes of a couple percent. There are countless options considering total income in the usa is over 50 trillion and total wealth is over 160 trillion.

Beyond that you do nothing to refute tje fact that taxes historically were higher on the wealthy and the put the tax burden more on middle class and that its idiotic to borrow agaisnt our kids to make an unmanageable debt