How much is $17 trillion? Visualized for reference.

[camcojb]

Originally Posted by parsonsj

Governments (and especially governments with their own currency) are not the same as households or businesses. The government has an obligation to follow policies to support employment for all its citizens that's very different than what a household or business does. If your reaction to that statement is that that isn't in the Constitution -- imagine the US with a balanced budget and 30% unemployment. The government wouldn't last long in that scenario.

The data shows that the European (UK, Greece, Italy) experiments with austerity -- reducing their future debt by cutting government spending -- has proven counter-productive. Cutting government spending has increased debt by creating more unemployment and reducing tax receipts.

Simply put: you can't save your way to prosperity. You have to invest your way to prosperity.

Fixating on debt at a time when the economy is operating below capacity and millions of people are out of work (or working below their skill level) is a false savings. A better policy would be to pursue an agenda to support more employment and grow the economy to reduce debt in the future. And that's especially true when the US government can borrow money at historically low rates.

my biggest concern is we enjoy this advantage because we can print our own money, and it's the world's currency. What happens when the Fed goes too far, and it ever lost that status? We could print all we wanted but it would be worthless, think Zimbabwe........... Also realize that the debt is still owed, and the interest rates will not stay as low as they are. When they rise the more debt you have the worse it will be. And there is NO doubt they are going to go up. We HAVE to address the spending to some point.

There needs to be balance, but the fastest way to reduce the deficit is to get people back to work and see the increased revenues rather than trying to increase taxes. But if they are unwilling to pass a budget or reduce spending also, then I don't see it happening near term. They've proven they're willing to spend money, but at this point it's going to the wrong things in my opinion.