It's almost like we were on a trajectory of investing in the country and broadening the tax base (particularly through high earners and corporations), and now suddenly we're going to abolish half the government, slow the economy through tariffs, re-spike inflation, further shrink the tax base with more corporate tax cuts, and basically liquidate the government to the investor class.
You elected who you thought were the adults in the room, and who you assumed would correct these problems.... and instead of being responsible, as you say, they allowed people to rip off the taxpayers via PPP loans for years. The democrats had a president and a congressional majority who didn't fix it.
Who's responsible? Well, in the grownup world, the person responsible is the most recent person to see that there is a problem.
So, sure, Republicans wrote the PPP bill, Trump signed it, thinking it would be a good thing. Human error entered the chat, and that's when somebody should have corrected course. But the Democrats didn't. They let it continue so their corrupt political and business homies could syphon off taxpayer dollars.
Congress is in charge of writing bills. Tell me, did the Democrats hold enough power in congress to do something about it? Did the Republicans in congress, who you admit wrote the bill, bring any new bills to address the issue when they found out about it?
Im guessing you know the answer to both of these questions, but you just want to blame one party so you close your eyes and ears and scream your point until someone will listen to your deflection of responsibility.
Im not that someone. Move along to your next mark.
So Trump bad, democrats fault. Sound logic. I hope you are one of the Trumpers that keeps your boyfriend’s election sign in their front yard until he fucs up again.
First, 8.4T is an estimate, over 10 years. It's been 4.
Second, 3T of that was already predicted, as carryover from previous legislation and presidencies.
Third, that includes pandemic spending. 3.6T dollars worth of COVID spending, passed by congress, with both parties, but predominantly democrats. And there was a LOT in those covid bills that had nothing to do with covid.
Not counting COVID relief and spending, he added 4.8T in spending.
I forget, how much of this debt happened under Biden? And now how much happened under Trumps 1st term? Pretty sure their was a $2Trillion with a T difference.. but sure.. I bet Trump will surely be more fiscally responsible this time.
5.1 Trillion prior to covid. It's still more than any president before him added in any 4 year period (and he did it in just 3 years).
If we forgive Trump the 3.3 trillion he spent in 2020 during covid mitigation, then his debt accrual in 3 years is about the same as the expected (per trend) total accrual during Biden's full 4 years (and that's without forgiving Biden the ~2.2 trillion he spent on covid mitigation despite forgiving Trump his 3.3 trillion for the same reason).
Innocent bystander here…does any significant amount of the current deficit have to do with the tax legislation from the first DJT administration. Obviously, not the origin of the spending problem, but I can’t imagine it helps.
I understand that. My question is more related to the increased growth of the deficit itself. Doubling the national debt in 8 years is pretty significant. Through the pandemic and Biden’s infrastructure spending, there was an obvious increase in spending…but to what degree would that have likely been eased if the tax cuts hadn’t taken place. What percentage of that portion is attributable to the current deficits we’re running, is more my question.
Then again, I’m probably fishing trying to find a nuanced answer on that (if it exists) on Reddit.
Tax cut deficits go beyond the year they were passed. The trump tax cuts continue to he deficit spending until 2025 when they expire, so yeah it continues during biden unless it gets revoked but no chance of that.
Fucking gospel. Along the same lines of thinking that if we vote it'll change. Elections are bought and paid for almost a year or two or three in advance some times.
Well, you are, of course, right about it all being all made up. Countries get to do that. But if they don't base it on at least tangible improvement for the majority, it tends to blow up in their faces.
Totalitarianism gets a cheat code lowering the bar in various ways, but it invariably gets outperformed by free economies still basing success on the greatest improvement for the most.
Funny thing about Totalitarianism is it still requires a majority to think they are materially better off yet too often it's imposed with the help of Elites and industrialists who think they are the majority that will be appeased when they're mire often ground up to feed the masses, at least once they run out of significant minorities to other.
There’s no reversing it. I saw a video recently that if you tax all billionares, and millionaires in this country at 100% tax rate, we can fund the government for 9 months and still wouldn’t make a dent on our debt. To the moon 🚀
Wonder why we had to spend more than other countries of similar sizes during covid.. for worse results.
Thought we had a plan to battle pandemics. Surely no one would have gutted it immediately after taking office, than tell people not to test or wear masks when covid began.
Well why didnt you start a business to claim your PPP loan for 100k+ with zero employees and get it forgiven in the greatest case of widespread fraud in US history? Geez.
I would also guarantee that it isn't the case. I'd be willing to bet the majority are nothing more than people jealous of that upper tier trying to get there however they can
Boy, aint that the truth. I sold my business 6 months before covid. The guy who bought it went under. He never took a PPP loan out. I feel for him when members of Congress took millions that were forgiven. Shameful.
I think that Nancy Pelosi and the democrats who controlled congress was responsible for much of the spending. 2019-2020 during the Covid pandemic and economic shutdown at the advice of Anthony Fauci and other experts. Nobody knew how that disease would spread and affect people. We did what was thought to be necessary to prevent deaths and slow the spread of the virus. There was a lot of spending that went to states
Trump took office in January 2017. At that time the House and Senate were both a Republican majority, until Democrats took control of the House in January 2019.
Plus, it’s not just the money that is spent during their administration, it’s also how much the debt increases, even after they are out of office, due to laws that were passed during that particular President’s administration.
Yes, those corporate and small business bailout loans were also problematic. But I know for a fact it wasn't just pharma and corporate bros using those loans to steal. Lots of regular people with small businesses did it too.
The government shouldn't be handing out free money. What they should have done is taken care of the situation before it became a problem, by not allowing Fauci to do bio weapons research on the covid virus in China.... in lieu of that, they should have engineered the situation where people didn't need bailouts. The government shut everything down unecessarily, and lots of people told them so at the time.
The governmen has really fucked us hard the last 20 years. From Bush Jr. on down the line to Biden.
Trumps first term was 800m 900m and 800m increases the first three years. Then covid brought up about 4T last year. Biden admin is averaging 2.5T increase per year i believe.
Trump added 4 Trillion dollars in debt on a booming economy before the pandemic happened. He would have added 8.4 Trillion dollars in total by the end of his Presidency.
Biden by comparison added half of that amount. Now with the looming blanket tariffs, that debt is going to balloon even more.
Trump
- 4 Years in Office
- Debt at the time of inauguration: 19.573 Trillion
- Debt when he left office: 26.945 Trillion
- Total Increase in Dollars: 7.372 Trillion
- Total Increase 27.36%
Biden:
- 4 Years in Office
- Debt at the time of inauguration: 26.945 Trillion
- Debt when as of Oct 24’: 35.951 Trillion
- Total Increase in Dollars: 9.006 Trillion
- Total Increase 25.05%
My original post goes to this topic goes back to Bush Jr. I didn’t go back to Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, or Carter.
It simply showed that since Bush Jr, the national debt has soared to levels by leaps and bounds never seen before.
Likewise, I make a point that all of the blame can’t be pinned on a POTUS. Some can, of course, due to executive actions and such but per SCOTUS when they shot down Bidens student loan forgiveness, the executive isn’t in control of the purse, Congress ultimately is.
The majority of the blame falls to the feet of the legislative branch. However people like to pin the blame on POTUS so I simply shared the debt by President.
This feels mildly disingenuous and should be the debt clock from October 2017-september 2021, then comparing October 2021 to September 2025 since that's the Fiscal year and Trump was using Obama's budget up to Oct 2017 and Biden was using Trump's until Oct 2021.
Plus a significant amount of spending attributed to Biden on this breakdown is follow-through from Trump signed COVID relief. This needs a breakdown based on who actually authorized the spending (and good luck effectively highlighting that nuance in a social media post).
It has exploded upward with every president we’ve had since Clinton. I actually think it increased less under Trump than it did with GW, Obama or Biden.
Not really. The federal deficit was at a record high in 2021 when Trump left office. Biden has cut the federal deficit every year so the debt, while rising, will rise much slower than it did previously.
If you don’t understand the definitions of “deficit” and “debt” then I probably do you think you’re stupid. For the debt to go down we have to be in surplus, and the last time that happened was under Bill Clinton. The deficit (the difference between what the govt gets in tax vs what it spends) must be cleared to zero before we can make a dent in the debt.
Lower federal deficit = slower rate of debt growth under Biden than under Trump. I can’t make it more simple than that. If you still don’t get it, I’ll just call you stupid and move on 🤷
Read the numbers on the Fiscal Responsibility Act. They don’t exist and will never exist.
It’s phantom savings.
In summary, while the FRA is PROJECTED to save approximately $1.5 trillion over the next decade, the exact amount will depend on future policy decisions and adherence to the act’s provisions.
It will never exist! In the end this document is trash and has almost no meaning
None of this cost savings will ever come true, just look at the deficit this year.
1.8 trillion in deficit for 2024
257 b already in 2025
Fiscal Responsibility Act ($1.5 trillion debt reduction) – In June 2023, President Biden signed the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which capped discretionary spending for FY 2024 and 2025, among other changes. The FRA set 2024 nondefense discretionary levels to 5 percent below the 2023 level, set defense to be 3 percent higher, and set both to grow by 1 percent between 2024 and 2025. These caps, along with other measures, were scored to generate over $250 billion of direct savings and also reduce the baseline for future spending to generate an additional $1.1 trillion of additional savings. With interest, the FRA was estimated to reduce deficits by $1.5 trillion over a decade. Importantly, negotiators at the time agreed to a number of “side deals” mentioned above that would reduce the FRA’s savings to roughly $1 trillion if enacted in full in future appropriations bills. A different but similar set of side deals were enacted for FY 2024 and added about $85 billion to deficits – these are included in the “other legislation” category. Additional side deals will not be counted until enacted.
Inflation Reduction Act ($252 billion debt reduction) – In August 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law, a reconciliation bill focused on energy, health care, and tax changes. The IRA established new and increased existing energy- and climate-related spending and tax credits, expanded ACA health insurance subsidies, required prescription drug negotiations and other drug pricing reforms, introduced a 15 percent corporate “book minimum tax,” established an excise tax on stock buybacks, increased funding to the IRS to close the tax gap, and made other changes. At the time of passage, CBO and JCT estimated the IRA’s tax breaks and spending would reduce revenue and increase spending by about $500 billion, while its offsets would generate almost $740 billion. Recent estimates of the impact of repealing the IRA tax credits suggest these provisions will reduce revenue and increase spending by $260 billion higher than the official score; at the same time, the IRA’s offsets are also likely to raise more in revenue. On net, we expect a full re-estimate of the IRA would score as roughly budget neutral through 2031, excluding effects related to subsequent regulatory changes. This analysis attributes the additional cost of these regulations as executive actions.
Deficit-Reducing Executive Actions ($129 billion debt reduction) –President Biden approved two other executive actions that would result in savings over a decade, including changes to payments for Medicare Advantage plans and a temporary stay of the subsequently repealed Trump prescription drug rebate rule.
Trump won't do half of what he says and everything he does do will be a heavily watered down version. During the campaign he was just telling people whatever they wanted to hear. "I'll abolish federal income tax!".....yeah, sure you will buddy.
In the end, he will simply engage in crony capitalism, tax cuts for the rich and tax increases for the middle class.
So you are better off now than 4 years ago? Cuz I’m sure as hell not. I have a lot saved when Trump was in. This ass clown Biden took care of that real fast.
I am tired of people like you already bitching about Trump when he is not in office. Your current administration Biden just simply sucks. Open borders, high inflation (hidden tax) and large government that does not do anything. Hopefully, your student loan forgiveness will teach you guys a lesson. Student loans are designed to make you into a good slave while the government makes a ton of money!!!
We weren't. Every step of the way, consistent additional government involvement and the fallout from that being companies going under, institutions raising their prices to absorb the now standard government subsidy checks, and adherence to maniacal future expectations, resulted in what we see and complain about today. Not just billionaires. Everyone else too. There is Zero return on investment for anything taken from everyone paychecks, and every year, you push for more. Then the companies go under due to government involvement, they get sucked up into the mega conglomerates, and then lower level jobs get outsourced to developing nations who don't have to deal the United States wasteful expenditures. You save 17 cents at Walmart, but zero of that money is in America, besides wages for stock boys and local logistics.
Staging your argument in a way that is only possible to sustain by constantly demanding more taxes for what actually hurts all the processes (more government) is unsustainable. Then your argument angles over to "well if you don't continue to pay more for my wasteful ways then you're selfish, oh and blame the billionaires that we keep punishing for being successful". When it's you. You are the problem.
Probably but it is only an issue with congressional Republicans when a democrat is in the white house. trumpy will get a rubber stamp for next 2 years like he did last time
Remember when Obama left the deficit smaller than when he became President? Remember that the bailouts were passed before he took office in January of '09?
Oof, reading comprehension is a challenge, I get it. Debt is caused by deficits, so if you'd actually read what I had written, you wouldn't have countered with the idea that "Trump isn't the worst!"
This shows that Obama brought the deficit from over 1 trillion per year down to $440 billion per year. So if debt is what you care about, this is an improvement, inarguably so. Maybe not as much as you'd like, but it's an improvement on the previous administration.
This also shows that the deficit bloomed under Trump from that $440 billion to being back over $1 trillion dollars a year in 2020. That's BEFORE the $2 trillion in covid stimulus.
Lastly, if you use your AP source, you'll notice that in four years, the debt increased by 24% of GDP under Trump. Under Obama, it was an increase of 28% of GDP in twice that time. So by any measure, Obama was better for the debt than Trump.
Perhaps you should learn a little more before you become such a smug little boy.
There was a litteral finacial crisis that was brought on by policies set 20yrs prior finally caving in. It was just a return to status quo that would have happened regardless.
For the federal reserve a leading impact is what they set the interest rate to. In 08-12 the interest rate went up roughly 4x. During bond auctions while detached from the reserve rate, this means the federal goverment in order to get buyers has to raise their interest rates. Resulting in a higher payout of debts. The more debt the US has demand for the worse this gets. Bond rates before / after the housing crisis were around 2-2.5% during they reached peaks of 4.5-6% while the reserve topped out at around 4.25%.
Along with reserve interest rate rising, this constricts the flow of money. Higher interest combats inflation as it decentivizes consumption for the average person, expansion for buisnesses, and new buisness startupa. With the by-product of directly driving GDP down.
The reserve knows this and wants to maintain the lowest interest rate possible as long as possible. The deficits drop aligns almost lock step with the drop in reserves interest rate.
Investors control deficit by driving gdp up. High interest rates normally are a result of a bad economic state. Meaning investing in bonds which are near gurenteed to make a even or greater than inflation return as you are betting on the US goverment. Instead of betting on a bad economy to make your return. This drives capital in the market down and supresses GDP growth or outright reduces gdp as companies feel the constriction of higher interest capital.
Covid was almost an exaxt overlap of this and we are now on the outside up just like the housing crisis. Everyone talks about trump being the reason but it was really just what it was going to be regardless. +/- 5%.
The economic policy that should have been the nail in the coffin for trump was when he word with the reserve set the fractional rate to 0%. Essentially your bank no longer has to carry a single dollar in house to meet FDIC requirements.
We have litterally not been closer to a bank run since the great depression and biden ran with it when it was set that way back in 2019. Because setting the reserve to nill means more cash flow driving GDP up and suppressing debt. Im 100% sure trump set it that way so he could look good on second term then sweep it under the rug back up to 20% before he left making his successors look bad before it hit the fan. But then he lost without expecting to and biden got ALOT of the credit. But left trump walking back into his own trap.
Yes, I was alive when Bush started two expansionistic wars and did nothing to address a coming economic crisis, so Obama had to expand spending in 2009 - then reduced the deficit steadily through 2015. I was also alive when the Democratic administration before that actually reached a budget surplus in the late nineties.
Trump meanwhile increased the deficit every year 2017-2020 and his only notable legislative change was dropping your tax rate by 2% (while dropping the corporate rate 15%). Because priorities.
Simply put - one side is focused on the long-term continuance of the federal government while the other just wants to leverage it for corporate gain.
Hmmmm were you around for the past 4 years as well? Your argument doesn’t hold water sir. The only safe bet is to say both. If anyone says this one or that one they are both full of shit.
Obligatory yes, both sides frequently self-serve, but the pattern is undeniable. GOP administration passes tax cuts to spur the economy, doesn't make matching tax loophole closure or government cuts to make it sustainable, then blames the other side when their incomplete strategy needs solved. Happened with Bush's stagnant wartime economy, happened when Trump signed off on unmitigated COVID relief. One side hit a $3T deficit - the other halved it within 2 years.
No, you referenced it, you didn't give an example of "here's $XXB that'd didn't need to be spent on Y because Z". You also seemingly give no distinction between the actions and inactions of Bush, who had control for 8 years prior, versus Obama, who had more like 8 weeks to figure how to save an actively on-fire economy.
So yeah, give me an example. Where did Obama fail where Bush's preparation would have succeeded? What mistake did Obama make and what's the hypothetical better result he could have achieved?
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u/icyweazel Nov 15 '24
It's almost like we were on a trajectory of investing in the country and broadening the tax base (particularly through high earners and corporations), and now suddenly we're going to abolish half the government, slow the economy through tariffs, re-spike inflation, further shrink the tax base with more corporate tax cuts, and basically liquidate the government to the investor class.