[nickysielicki]

We are $19.2TN in debt. Six percent of federal income is spent directly on interest on that debt, to the tune of $222BN annually. That money goes directly into the pockets of big banks, many of them foreign.

It sure would be nice if that could be spent differently! But unfortunately, we keep spending money we don't have!

[bubbleRefuge]

This is completely ignorant. The federal government is an issuer of currency and therefore has infinite amounts of money . We are no longer on the gold standard where money was limited by gold reserves. Making and repeating these kind of FUD statements which reinforce a false analogy that federal budgets are like household budgets is keeping many bad politicians in business .

[nickysielicki]

How am I implying or reinforcing the idea that our federal budget is analogous to a household budget? There is no FUD here.

> This is completely ignorant. The federal government is an issuer of currency and therefore has infinite amounts of money . We are no longer on the gold standard where money was limited by gold reserves.

That's a tautology. We are only an issuer of currency insofar as we have credit. Our credit rating is heavily dependent on our ability to make interest payments, which are $222BN annually.

Now maybe what you're saying is that since we can issue more currency, we will never be unable to make these payments because US debt is denominated in US dollars. And sure, that's technically true, but absolutely no one in America comes out ahead after that. Americans are the people most invested in the future of the dollar-- particularly lower and middle class Americans who have savings accounts and retirement funds that are mostly denominated in US dollars, whereas rich people hold capital assets.

So that doesn't address my point, which is that right now we have an expenditure of $222BN annually and we're obligated to make those payments or face some consequences that are much greater.

And all I'm saying is that it would have been really great if we didn't have to spend those $222BN every year. And what would be less great, but still great, is if we could start moving that number down.

[bubbleRefuge]

>but absolutely no one in America comes out ahead after that. Huh ?

Anyway. You need to educate yourself. Read up on Modern Monetary Theory. You continue to make analogies between household budget constraints and money issuer budget constraints. Money issuers have no budget constraints. The only constraint is inflation and policy makers the world over have been try to create inflation for 25 years. ( see japan, europe, usa post 2008).

Government debt == private sector savings. Eliminating government debt would lead to another great depression. It makes no sense for a country like ours which is a net importer. Again, you're empowering the politicians with this FUD.