Ted Rall for June 05, 2023

Exactly. People borrow for things they think they need and unless they’re misled or stupid, they don’t borrow more than they can afford to pay off. Governments SHOULD behave in a similar manner, but of course it’s a lot harder to decide how much the nation can afford… and it’s also way too easy for folks who don’t have any skin in the game to decide to borrow to buy things that sound good without doing the real calculations. Things like tax cuts for the rich.

But government or family, what you DON’T do is borrow and then arbitrarily just refuse to pay your debts, which is what the GQP, and the GOP before them has often threatened to do. For families, there is such a thing as declaring bankruptcy. For governments, that’s only possible if you’re willing to completely degrade the value of your currency… and effectively declare yourself a third-world nation.

How many people are paying the previous owner’s mortgage and the neighbour’s car loan?

25% of our debt was rung up by Reagan.

As Erse IS better already pointed out, people also borrow, but typically with a plan on how to pay back. Governments usually have no plan and no intention to pay back.

How many so-called ‘conservatives’ will comment on the deficit and include the effects of tax cuts?

.

Spoiler alert: There won’t be ANY.

Zero. And in a totally related coincidence, that’s exactly the same exact number of Republicans who have reduced spending.

I take it that’s a Republican household. “Economy” BTW originally comes from the ancient Greek “oikonomos”, household manager, so I guess she has a point, as does Mr. Rall.

“21.8% of the public debt, or $6.87 trillion, is owned by another arm of the federal government itself. That includes Medicare; specialized trust funds, such as those for highways and bank deposit insurance; and civil service and military retirement programs. But the biggest chunk of those “intragovernmental holdings” belongs to Social Security” (Pew Research).

Yup, people are easily led and often foolish. No argument from me.

And then there is bankruptcy …

Just for the record: government is NOT a family, nor is it a business. It cannot be run by the same rules.

And balancing the household budget includes paying down the auto loans, mortgages, etc. If we fail, we lose those assets.

It’s not the same thing with the government. Rall knows this so I’m a bit surprised he’s making a false equivalency like this.

If a republican was sitting in the white house then the republicons would be saying that raising the debt ceiling was our patriotic duty

The solution is to spend less or earn more. Given that the federal budget has obligations to spend, that suggests earning more taxes. Thus, the corporate elite are panicking because they’ve be riding the gravy train, especially since the god Pruneface (who ascended into heaven a score ago today) accelerated the trend with Reaganomics. Their only solution continues with “culture wars” so the middle class and the working class continue to fight each other while they laugh all the way to the bank.

Debt and deficit are two completely different things. Quit confusing them.

In order to KEEP AMERICA up and running, the govt needs to keep up!

People are credit card crazy! In debt and keeps on spending!

Pack a lunch, make your own coffee, have a savings account, etc….

The difference is that households cannot legally print money, while the government does this routinely (thus all the inflation).

Of a piece with the silly notion that government should operate “like a business.”

Again, this facile argument has been around forever. We’re paying the debts incurred by previous generations. (Our taxes might be paying for W’s Iraq War, right now.) The same is true for debts incurred now. As long as there’s FAITH in the ability of the US government to pay its bills, people, institutions, stock funds, etc. will “lend” to the US.

A difference between “households” that the complainers consistently refuse to acknowledge is that when the national economy grows, the same tax rates bring in more income. More income means bills get paid.

A question of degree addressed with idealism, 2 ships passing in the fog.

Don’t be confusing folk. Personal debt is for fun stuff.. government dept is different, created by folk you don’t even know.

The difference is these folks bought all that stuff with their money. Politicians are spending our money.

People will argue that government is different, because it can print money, but how well will that work when the US dollar is dethroned from its position as the global reserve currency? (a process which is galloping along).

The difference is that households do pay their payments towards their bills and will pay off some debts before going into debt for something else. For example, I still own a truck that is 22 years old and has been paid off for 12 years. A year ago I went into debt for a car I’ll have paid off in three years. The Government simply doesn’t pay anything off. They are lucky to cover the interest on the loan. That doesn’t stop them from continuing to spend on new things, like financing Ukraine’s battle with Russia.

It’s not just the debt, It’s about what you do with the debt you incur. Special call out to all the R’s that scold young people about taking out education loans that they don’t want to pay for now and their own hypocritical priorities de jour.

Welfare state Florida takes 55 billion from the government. New York gives 22 billion to the government, its solvent.

But America should be run like a business, and businesses never borrow money!

I guess.

That’s what it sounded like when what Friedman told Nixon was amplified during the Reagan administration by the Koch’s, et al from Libertarianville.

Scott Stantis can probably bring it all together for us on a certain podcast he cohosts with a certain someone who drew today’s ‘toon.

Just listened to the 20 June 22 Stantis/Rall podcast, where Stantis interviewed Rall. I didn’t learn much. It was pretty much a lovefest. Ted’s an idealist. We knew that. Reminded me that we share France, as I was born over there, my father being stationed there. Ted’s mother was French; mine, from New Orleans……………..Stantis also reiterated how much smaller Ukraine is than Russia. Uraine has 1/3 Russia’s population. The Russian’s ain’t makin’ no babies, and ain’t nobody movin’ to Russia. The point being, traditionally when one army attacks another, the attacking army wants a 3-1 size advantage. Being 1/3 the size of Russia puts Ukraine right at big enough to defend itself, and that’s for conventional warfare. We’re not even talking about guerilla warfare, where no attacking military has done a great job winning in my lifetime. Stantis is just a DA about this matter.

Be careful what you wish for. I like and need my social security to survive.

The average family cannot print new currency to pay their bills

Greate one Ted. I’ve been trying to explain this for decades

“A slave to money, then you die”………………

Is Rall really this ignorant about why the “Government” spends “our” money?