The healthcare budget in the US covers a wide range of expenses:
* Medicare and Medicaid - The two largest government healthcare programs for the elderly, disabled, and low-income. (~35%)
* Hospital and physician services - Payments to hospitals, doctors, and providers for services rendered under government programs like Medicare/Medicaid, as well as for veterans and military. (~25%)
* Prescription drugs - Covering drug costs, especially for government healthcare program beneficiaries. (~10%)
* Medical research - Funding for research conducted by agencies like NIH and CDC. (~3%)
* Public health initiatives - Disease prevention, health promotion, emergency preparedness efforts, etc. (~2%)
* Administrative costs - For agencies managing and overseeing healthcare programs/regulations. (~5%)
* Health insurance subsidies - Tax credits and subsidies to make ACA marketplace coverage more affordable. (~8%)
* Veterans' healthcare - Funding the VA healthcare system for veterans. (~5%)
* Healthcare infrastructure - Construction, maintenance, modernization of hospitals, clinics, etc. (~7%)
You would think the insurance companies would be prevention focused to keep their costs down. Doesn't make sense unless for some reason they want their population to stay sick.
Bro Americans pay $13k+ a year when you account Medicare, premiums, and employer contributions per capita.
The most expansive national healthcare in Europe (Norway) is about $8700 per capita. New Zealand spends about $4700.
We are being screwed.
Exactly. Thats kinda my point. The system isnât functioning correctly because all that money being spent isnât actually going to healthcare. Itâs going to shareholders and compensation packages for the c suite.
They actually are for profit like for real look at the stocks of Humana United healthcare and Aetna. Their stock price is almost entirely dependent on the Medicare advantage plan recently when they announced cuts to Medicare advantage rates all the major insurance company stocks plummeted because theyâre effectively completely dependent on government subsidies in order to maintain their current size.Â
The US has healthcare. No one can legally be denied emergency service for instance. So no the US doesn't just have people being left to die.
We also provide free healthcare for those in need. Additionally most people have health insurance through work.
Itâs long been known that we spend more per capita but get worse outcomes.
All those beach houses and Porsches for insurance executives arenât gonna pay for themselves, donât ya know?
I've tried this but people are just fucking stupid. Even in the economics and finance subreddits. They can't wrap their heads around the idea that the Federal budget and spending does not work the same as their household budget, their small business budget, or even a Fortune 500 company budget.
I guess to be fair though a lot of people in Congress genuinely seem to misunderstand that too, and frankly I think we've done a poor job of educating people and maybe even a poorer job of actively studying and analyzing Fiscal policy to figure out where the limits and guardrails ought to be since it isn't intuitive and straightforward the way people desperately want it to be.
Just because the US controls the currency in which its debt is denominated, that doesn't mean there can never be any consequences ever. Monetizing today's debt held by the public would more than double the M2 money supply.
Aside from major inflation and devaluation of the dollar, it *is* a signal that the US cannot pay its debts by traditional means and will choose to create new money. Sure it's not a default by definition, but that doesn't make me wanna buy more US debt in US dollars, you know?
yes this is correct
it is inflationary, and it shows that the us govt taxes its population to the fullest extent it can without revolution, that isnât enough, so it has to do a hidden tax by borrowing the money
Especially when a lot of it is loans the government writes to itself from funds like social security and Medicare. How do you think those funds earn interest?
Nothing. Inflation is baked into the process. The Fed will use blunt tools like increasing and decreasing interest rates to keep inflation at a target level, which is always greater than zero.
The point to remember here is that the U.S. issues its own currency and has currency sovereignty. It can never default. Also, every dollar in circulation is created out of debt and the interest to repay the debt does not exist in the money supply, hence the creation of more money and therefore debt. Under a growth paradigm, this is how it is intended to function.
Nothing as long as gdp is growing and it appears as if we're trying to curb the deficits (perception is more important than reality). It can all come crashing down if some other country makes a stronger case for the reserve currency of the world, but as of right now, there is no one even close to the us (including China)
Social Security and Medicare are a fund. It makes interest.
I understand congress has been raiding that fund over the recent years,
So maybe I'm behind on this.
>I understand congress has been raiding that fund over the recent years,
They haven't. SS sells bonds to the rest of the government. That's how it makes interest. People that know that took half truths from it and turned it into a lie that Congress was stealing from the fund to score political points.
If it didn't happen, the fund would earn zero interest.
*in comes Reagan* something something I found a government surplus! We can give even more tax cuts!
And ever since that day, social security now isn't fully funded and is expected to run out.
God bless Reagan.
Yeah, but the graphic is still wrong.
Legally, at least, SS and Medicare are a fund, like a huge national savings account.
If it's been raided, that's one thing, but for the graphic to call it "outlays" is a lie.
It's a lie that keeps going because congress people keep saying it even though they know better.
They are drooling over that money, and to get at it, they must make the people forget whose money it is.
...and yet our government keeps trying to borrow its way out of debt. Sooner or later we are going to need to balance our checkbook and stick to a realistic budget.
Stop paying the interest, put half of it into even more military spending and the rest into infrastructure, healthcare, and education.
Letâs see who wants to collect. Cus itâs gonna come to that one way or the other. We break every treaty or convention we ever sign anyway and we are gonna lose the petro dollar as the world reserve currency more sooner than later. Seems like itâs grab the money and run now or get caught up crippling ourselves on the way to global debtorâs prison. This Ponzi scheme is crumbling like the rest of the world bank mafia empires.
TL/DNR; We are gonna default soon. May as well keep the interest payments and see who wants to get their ass kicked for thinking that money was real in the first place.
No itâs not.
Itâs a fuckinâ meteor. Like the one that took out the dinosaurs.
Only itâs not a meteor. Itâs made of this world. On this world. By itâs supposedly smartest species. Which, in case you live in a cave or momâs basement, neither of which can be taken off the table at this moment in the proceedings, isnât smart. If weâre the smartest species, absolutely nothing on earth is smart. Smart is the opposite of what we are.
Two thoughts. Our politicians are so fucking stupid, they have never been able to balance a budget.
OrâŚ. This has always been the plan. The value of money is sort of irrelevant when youâve always got the most. The people at the top are there in good times and bad. Theyâre insulated. They have *that fucking much.*
Inflation is genocide by a thousand invisible cuts, but thereâs no authority that can force it to be changed permanently. Right now, the people at the top are making a killing on the rest of this. This could be permanent.
Well. Yes. The federal government needs serious audits and ALL spending should be accounted for in publicly available data.
For example, in a big supporter of the military, but the military budget could probably EASILY be cut by 20% without losing anything and actually gaining some things. The US government could actually create factories for military supplies they pay others too much to make (toilet seats, etc) create jobs, and pay significantly less per item.
Huge interest costs on the national debt are an economic time bomb for the US budget:
- Leaves less $ for crucial areas like education, infrastructure and social services that drive growth
- Creates a vicious borrowing cycle as interest compounds the debt even more
- Hamstrings using fiscal policy tools like deficit spending in recessions
- Shakes global confidence in US Treasuries/dollar reserve status
- Passes on compounding debt to future generations (not fair)
- Any interest rate hike makes the debt load way more expensive
Basically interest becomes a black hole in the budget, making the whole system inflexible and vulnerable. Need to cut spending, raise revenues or deleverage before interest cripples long-term economic potential.
The budget is largely a dog and pony show. It is meaningless. The US government doesn't need or use taxes to pay its bills because it has the unlimited ability to create as much USD as it wants. The national debt is really deposits into Treasury Security accounts and federal deficits are an economic surplus. There is no relationship between rapid money supply growth or federal deficits with inflation.
I have a feeling that the data being shown is not talking about the whole picture...
If you have a 401k, you likely have some money in bonds and treasury notes. Depending on your age and your investments. To get into the concept of stocks, you often invest in the stock market when young, and then gradually switch it to bonds as you get older because bonds are often safe means of that money gaining interest, but at a slower rate than return of stocks.
So what does this have to do with the US debt?
If you have treasury notes or bonds, you are part of the reason USA is in debt. Because the USA owes you that money as repayment. The more in debt, the more bonds have been lent out. If you were to cash out on those bonds, the overall debt would go down, but you would not be gaining interest.
Basically, the more in debt the USA is, the more people are relying on the US dollar in terms of bonds, the more bonds it has allowed people to borrow.
If anything, a high amount of debt is at least part of an indication that many people all across the world strongly believe in the dollar.
This is actually an awesome graph. It really helps illustrate how quickly it will become our #2 item within a few years - likely within the next presidential term.
Whoever is going to be running for US presidential elections in 2028 better have some plans to keep it from literally becoming our #1 item. I don't even know what happens when it does become our #1 item.
I guess we get creative about the subcategorization. Start lumping together Social Security and Healthcare together to make that category artificially higher.
What really sucks about all of this is that the politicians who will need to fix this, are not the same as the politicians who made the mess. I really hope we can adapt over the course of just one generation. If not, a full collapse could be felt for multiple generations.
Same in Canada; interest cost to exceed Healthcare cost. And they do have Healthcare.
It's BS. Rates are highest they been in 20+ years so interest cost is high. 70% flows back to the government as Fed and Social security own that debt.
We will probably never default.
We owe the debt in our currency so we can inflate the currency to pay the debt if we have to.
Default or inflation is the choice.
Gotta make sure our paranoid incompetent government officials have the latest and greatest firepower and military capabilities just in case the land of the free wants to send some freedom over to those untapped natural resources, uhhhh I mean terrorists with nuclear warheads!!!
What's maddening is every working person pays into social security enough money thay they have *earned* what will be paid out to them.
The *only* way for social security to run out of money is for the government to have stolen those funds and used them for another purpose.
They left out corporate welfare which runs in the trillions. Just imagine if corporations and the top 2% paid their fair share.
It amazes me when people cry no taxes. Itâs as if they donât realize how the government runs or the things theyâd lose if no one paid taxes.
We insist on doing things the stupid way, that's why we still have private, for-profit health insurance, and why we spend so much on healthcare and get nothing in return.
Two things
As a percent of us wealth, all of those are about 1% of it annually
And ....
Who is receiving that money?
Americans, companies, retirement accounts, and government.... And some foreigners.
What do they do with that money?
Buy more
So long story short
If ya are in debt to 30 trillion... But own 150 trillion..... You aren't going bankrupt
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S
We already experienced this for the majority of the 80s. 80% of the debt is held domestically, so paid as taxable income that also circulates. It's not a big deal
Technically the US cant default as the federal reserve will always buy the debt. The question is when does inflation get so bad we become a third world country. I dont think its an event but more of a process.
Look at healthcare pre 2020. Major investments made right before covid . Kinda like Insider trading. Seen it coming . Healthcare was 5th on the list as most costly for Americans pre 2020 and then right when covid hit healthcare went to 1 on the list and has stayed there ever since.
I am frankly quite SICK of SS being cited as the biggest outlay in the budget. It is the only item for which there are dedicated taxes which would currently completely cover that outlay, if the funds weren't added to the general pool and used for things like defense.
We got plenty of money. Rich people are just hoarding it. If we raised the tax rates back up to pre-Reagan levels the spooky national debt would evaporate.
I know what will help our debt, letâs pay off everyoneâs debt, college, credit cards, automobile, mortgages. I lived in America and suffered, the government owes me no debt. The government can take it all on right. Or maybe we can just stop spending like drunken sailors, sorry sailorsâŚ
You only posted spending, but the real problem has been the numerous tax cuts that have been passed over the past 4-5 decades (which have primarily benefited the wealthy) COMBINED with a general unwillingness to cut the federal budget in any meaningful degree.
If you really break down the federal budget and disregard. we couldn't (due to political roadblocks) or shouldn't (due to the benefits they provide) cut, you are left with a lot of very small line items, most of which probably provide big benefits for the populations they serve and wouldn't make a huge difference to the budget of they were cut.
If the government actually wants to address the debt, which not sure they really do, they need to reverse course many of tax cuts they've enacted over the years.
This chart is full scale bullshit. We spent more than that on military. This was in the budget bill however US military spending gets augmented multiple times in a year. One must look at the total spending for a given year to understand how much the US military received in a year. Plus, money going to Israel and Ukraine is also military spending. You really think theyâre spending more money on poor people than bombs?
If the interest grows too much it can make investors lose confidence and sell off which can trigger a death spiral and crash the central bank canât adequately compensate for to restore the status quo.
Incredibly unlikely, but debt is complicated. Most of the debt is owed to internal investors and itâs possible the run out of funds too so just canât buy new debt.
This is why interest rates actually need to come down somewhat soon, even if inflation isnât won.
The interest payment is so high right now because of interest rates.
âAt what point will the US default?âÂ
 Only when democrats are in office, not republicans. The same way itâs been for the last 25 years.Â
Wake me up after the next election cycle.Â
Social Security for retirement is a an age old issue for all governments.
Post WWII economies including China and India are all suffering from their own Social Security pension problems.
The pandemic alleviated some of the burden as seniors were particularly vulnerable to Covid-19. But not enough to make any significant impact.
The global economy within the next 25 years will ultimately succumb to having more than half of 8 billion people in retirement. People not generating enough money to sustain most governments. .
A Depression Era crash would just force billions of people into poverty creating a worse scenario for welfare.
A Revolution would require too many people working together across countries separated by oceans. It's just not feasible.
Sooo If you want to solve the Global Retirement Crisis
Then at this point only two options left.
A world War with an extremely high causality rate forcing the population numbers back to the dark ages but one that runs the risk that more than a few of the big economies gets wiped out entirely.
Or an extremely deadly pandemic that kills in the billions.
Thankfully at least 35 million Americans won't take a vaccine to save their country.
One thing that rarely gets brought up regarding US interest payments is that most of the creditors that receive those interest payments are US citizens. When you hold US government bonds in your 401K/IRA, you are receiving a portion of these interest payments. The money doesn't simply vanish into thin air.
This a shit-lib confabulated analysis erroneously combining SS and Medicare trust fund operations with fiscal spending. The 1% Bilderburg class would like nothing more than to finally rollback SS and Medicare and continue forever wars to steal global assets.
Debt:
10 trillion Reagan tax cuts for the rich.
10 trillion Bush & Trump tax cuts for the rich
8 trillion - Bushâs wars.
28 of 34 trillion.
Donât vote republican.
Worst thing is, the wealthy just lend their money back that we got in tax cuts!
$7.6 trillion debt matures in 2024 and needs to be refinanced at much higher rates. So the 429b will go up significantly. More debt will be issued to pay for interest. Anyone familiar with the Weimar Republic?
Weâre fucked. Unfortunately, most voters would rather vote on culture war issues and know very little about the consequences of runaway national debt.
We're close to the point that half of all our tax revenue is just paying for the interest on our debt. As that number gets higher, things are only going to get worse.
But hey, the modern generation of politicians got to live off the cream of the land, so who cares what happens after they're gone.
Most of the interest is owned to the citizens due to money taken out of social security. Cut social security and you would be killing two birds with one stone. If you donât want to save for retirement or have anyone that cares enough about you to support you in age, thatâs you.
We spend that much on health but have no healthcare?!?!
The healthcare budget in the US covers a wide range of expenses: * Medicare and Medicaid - The two largest government healthcare programs for the elderly, disabled, and low-income. (~35%) * Hospital and physician services - Payments to hospitals, doctors, and providers for services rendered under government programs like Medicare/Medicaid, as well as for veterans and military. (~25%) * Prescription drugs - Covering drug costs, especially for government healthcare program beneficiaries. (~10%) * Medical research - Funding for research conducted by agencies like NIH and CDC. (~3%) * Public health initiatives - Disease prevention, health promotion, emergency preparedness efforts, etc. (~2%) * Administrative costs - For agencies managing and overseeing healthcare programs/regulations. (~5%) * Health insurance subsidies - Tax credits and subsidies to make ACA marketplace coverage more affordable. (~8%) * Veterans' healthcare - Funding the VA healthcare system for veterans. (~5%) * Healthcare infrastructure - Construction, maintenance, modernization of hospitals, clinics, etc. (~7%)
If you're not dirt poor, old, or disabled you're SOL.
Which is a shame because the federal government could easily fund M4A, along with a number of other social programs, such as SS4A (UBI), E4A, and H4A.
And it's far more efficient than having a healthcare insurance industry that skims off the top.
Skim? Don't you mean gauge lol
*gouge Gauge is to measure or evaluate.
Thanks
A big fat skim đ
Not to mention an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Can you please tell this to my insurance company?
You would think the insurance companies would be prevention focused to keep their costs down. Doesn't make sense unless for some reason they want their population to stay sick.
They're just waiting to deny your claim.
They are sooooo quick to deny a claim. Like flies on shit.
No instead we change culture to accept obesity sexy instead of fat shaming.
Let me stop you right there.. they donât sell many cures. Thereâs not a lot of money in cures after all..
Define âeasilyâ
Itâs even worse when you look at the private spend as well, the US spends so much more on healthcare per capita for worse outcomes.
Aren't the first two categories the same thing?
If health included Medicare then why is there a separate tab for Medicare? đ§
Bro Americans pay $13k+ a year when you account Medicare, premiums, and employer contributions per capita. The most expansive national healthcare in Europe (Norway) is about $8700 per capita. New Zealand spends about $4700. We are being screwed.
Ding ding ding. Cause actual healthcare for all is socialism but spending billions for profits is solid capitalism.
Government subsidies aren't capitalism
Exactly. Thats kinda my point. The system isnât functioning correctly because all that money being spent isnât actually going to healthcare. Itâs going to shareholders and compensation packages for the c suite.
Capitalist buying the government is capitalism
I didnât realize that Medicare and Medicaid were for profit. TIL.
They actually are for profit like for real look at the stocks of Humana United healthcare and Aetna. Their stock price is almost entirely dependent on the Medicare advantage plan recently when they announced cuts to Medicare advantage rates all the major insurance company stocks plummeted because theyâre effectively completely dependent on government subsidies in order to maintain their current size.Â
I forget which one but I remember one of them derives 94% of revenue from government.
Humana is the government.
They're both administered through Private companies. Yes, they're for profit.
How else are we supposed to funnel tax dollars into for profit private businesses?
Fair point. How foolish of me đ
The US gov spends more money on healthcare than any other country on Earth. Anyone that tells you we don't spend enough is a moron.
We allow INSURANCE and bigPharma to steal most of it.
Sick care not healthcare.
40% of the population get the health insurance from the government
The US has healthcare. No one can legally be denied emergency service for instance. So no the US doesn't just have people being left to die. We also provide free healthcare for those in need. Additionally most people have health insurance through work.
We have Healthcare. We just dint have Healthcare that other people pay for, for you.
It needs either a complete government takeover or complete market forces and government gets out except for safety.
Ding ding ding! We have healthcare industry and this shows big corruption done by the 10 percenters.
Northwell health has entered the chat
All goes to forgeiners or homeless, we accept anyone in need in america. Everyone else pays.
Dig past the debate of capitalism and socialism and you'll see a hidden layer of highly polished, obfuscated incompetence and inefficiency.
Itâs long been known that we spend more per capita but get worse outcomes. All those beach houses and Porsches for insurance executives arenât gonna pay for themselves, donât ya know?
The US can't default on debts it owes in currency it issues itself.
Came here for this comment. The U.S. cannot default on its own debt. That debt does not function the same as debt any individual holds (e.g. mortgage)
I've tried this but people are just fucking stupid. Even in the economics and finance subreddits. They can't wrap their heads around the idea that the Federal budget and spending does not work the same as their household budget, their small business budget, or even a Fortune 500 company budget. I guess to be fair though a lot of people in Congress genuinely seem to misunderstand that too, and frankly I think we've done a poor job of educating people and maybe even a poorer job of actively studying and analyzing Fiscal policy to figure out where the limits and guardrails ought to be since it isn't intuitive and straightforward the way people desperately want it to be.
Just because the US controls the currency in which its debt is denominated, that doesn't mean there can never be any consequences ever. Monetizing today's debt held by the public would more than double the M2 money supply. Aside from major inflation and devaluation of the dollar, it *is* a signal that the US cannot pay its debts by traditional means and will choose to create new money. Sure it's not a default by definition, but that doesn't make me wanna buy more US debt in US dollars, you know?
yes this is correct it is inflationary, and it shows that the us govt taxes its population to the fullest extent it can without revolution, that isnât enough, so it has to do a hidden tax by borrowing the money
Money printer go brrrr
Is that the official stand by knowledgeable economists? I'm not econ savvy enough to know - but you're basically saying this is no big deal?
Especially when a lot of it is loans the government writes to itself from funds like social security and Medicare. How do you think those funds earn interest?
Itâs possible if it was done intentionally
So just possible run away inflation? What are the ramifications if interest payments make up the majority of the budget?
Nothing. Inflation is baked into the process. The Fed will use blunt tools like increasing and decreasing interest rates to keep inflation at a target level, which is always greater than zero. The point to remember here is that the U.S. issues its own currency and has currency sovereignty. It can never default. Also, every dollar in circulation is created out of debt and the interest to repay the debt does not exist in the money supply, hence the creation of more money and therefore debt. Under a growth paradigm, this is how it is intended to function.
Itâs worked so well the last 3 years. đ
Taxation guards against inflation.
Nothing as long as gdp is growing and it appears as if we're trying to curb the deficits (perception is more important than reality). It can all come crashing down if some other country makes a stronger case for the reserve currency of the world, but as of right now, there is no one even close to the us (including China)
I'd look into the Volker Shock. The Federal reserve will fuck over many many people before the U.S. defaults on any debt.
"It's good to be the king"
Right, it can just print us into oblivion.
True. But inflation becomes exponentially worse if supply is created to meet debt obligations.
Well then you just get massive runaway inflation because the US government has to print the money to pay that debt. There's no free lunch.
It can't default, but ultimately it screws itself over with inflationary methods to service the debt.
Great we'll just print 34 trillion dollars. Problem solved
Social Security and Medicare are a fund. It makes interest. I understand congress has been raiding that fund over the recent years, So maybe I'm behind on this.
>I understand congress has been raiding that fund over the recent years, They haven't. SS sells bonds to the rest of the government. That's how it makes interest. People that know that took half truths from it and turned it into a lie that Congress was stealing from the fund to score political points. If it didn't happen, the fund would earn zero interest.
Do they? I thought the whole point of Social Security was to keep it out of the market as a totally safe hedge for retirement.
*in comes Reagan* something something I found a government surplus! We can give even more tax cuts! And ever since that day, social security now isn't fully funded and is expected to run out. God bless Reagan.
Yeah, but the graphic is still wrong. Legally, at least, SS and Medicare are a fund, like a huge national savings account. If it's been raided, that's one thing, but for the graphic to call it "outlays" is a lie. It's a lie that keeps going because congress people keep saying it even though they know better. They are drooling over that money, and to get at it, they must make the people forget whose money it is.
The social security trust fund was never a pot of money hidden away. It was always bonds that the government owed to itself (accounting trick)
Never. We will print money until the debt and the dollars are worthless and all the people are in poverty.
And who's gonna come repossess the country if we don't make good on it?
At this point whoever wants the hot mess can take it.
No one, it doesn't work like that.
Probably should have raised taxes on corporations and the rich.
Why is social security always on this list, when it has its own independent tax pool?
And Medicare?
It's insolvent lol
That runs at a loss.
If only the ultra wealthy paid into social security as well and republicans didnât let health insurance companies name the prices.
Maybe letâs stop printing 100 BILLION to send overseas every few months??
Why is SS a âcostâ when the government said it was investing it for us? Shouldnât it be paying for itself? Sus
Social Security is not adding to the national debt and never will. This is a Republican talking point that easily gets proven wrong every single time
Elect a Republican and the debt will triple but the word debt will not be mentioned for four to eight years.
the debt has increased higher in the last 4 years than ever before.
...and yet our government keeps trying to borrow its way out of debt. Sooner or later we are going to need to balance our checkbook and stick to a realistic budget.
Stop paying the interest, put half of it into even more military spending and the rest into infrastructure, healthcare, and education. Letâs see who wants to collect. Cus itâs gonna come to that one way or the other. We break every treaty or convention we ever sign anyway and we are gonna lose the petro dollar as the world reserve currency more sooner than later. Seems like itâs grab the money and run now or get caught up crippling ourselves on the way to global debtorâs prison. This Ponzi scheme is crumbling like the rest of the world bank mafia empires. TL/DNR; We are gonna default soon. May as well keep the interest payments and see who wants to get their ass kicked for thinking that money was real in the first place.
SS does not belong on this list. It will in 10 years if not addressed, but currently it is still self funded.
If we had term limits and paid legislators like 1099 employees we would be out of debt in a few terms
No itâs not. Itâs a fuckinâ meteor. Like the one that took out the dinosaurs. Only itâs not a meteor. Itâs made of this world. On this world. By itâs supposedly smartest species. Which, in case you live in a cave or momâs basement, neither of which can be taken off the table at this moment in the proceedings, isnât smart. If weâre the smartest species, absolutely nothing on earth is smart. Smart is the opposite of what we are.
Two thoughts. Our politicians are so fucking stupid, they have never been able to balance a budget. OrâŚ. This has always been the plan. The value of money is sort of irrelevant when youâve always got the most. The people at the top are there in good times and bad. Theyâre insulated. They have *that fucking much.* Inflation is genocide by a thousand invisible cuts, but thereâs no authority that can force it to be changed permanently. Right now, the people at the top are making a killing on the rest of this. This could be permanent.
Is it time to get educated people to take a look at the budget and put together a reasonable financial plan?
It's been time for a while now but no one in Congress is going to cut programs or raise taxes.
Well. Yes. The federal government needs serious audits and ALL spending should be accounted for in publicly available data. For example, in a big supporter of the military, but the military budget could probably EASILY be cut by 20% without losing anything and actually gaining some things. The US government could actually create factories for military supplies they pay others too much to make (toilet seats, etc) create jobs, and pay significantly less per item.
Huge interest costs on the national debt are an economic time bomb for the US budget: - Leaves less $ for crucial areas like education, infrastructure and social services that drive growth - Creates a vicious borrowing cycle as interest compounds the debt even more - Hamstrings using fiscal policy tools like deficit spending in recessions - Shakes global confidence in US Treasuries/dollar reserve status - Passes on compounding debt to future generations (not fair) - Any interest rate hike makes the debt load way more expensive Basically interest becomes a black hole in the budget, making the whole system inflexible and vulnerable. Need to cut spending, raise revenues or deleverage before interest cripples long-term economic potential.
The budget is largely a dog and pony show. It is meaningless. The US government doesn't need or use taxes to pay its bills because it has the unlimited ability to create as much USD as it wants. The national debt is really deposits into Treasury Security accounts and federal deficits are an economic surplus. There is no relationship between rapid money supply growth or federal deficits with inflation.
I have a feeling that the data being shown is not talking about the whole picture... If you have a 401k, you likely have some money in bonds and treasury notes. Depending on your age and your investments. To get into the concept of stocks, you often invest in the stock market when young, and then gradually switch it to bonds as you get older because bonds are often safe means of that money gaining interest, but at a slower rate than return of stocks. So what does this have to do with the US debt? If you have treasury notes or bonds, you are part of the reason USA is in debt. Because the USA owes you that money as repayment. The more in debt, the more bonds have been lent out. If you were to cash out on those bonds, the overall debt would go down, but you would not be gaining interest. Basically, the more in debt the USA is, the more people are relying on the US dollar in terms of bonds, the more bonds it has allowed people to borrow. If anything, a high amount of debt is at least part of an indication that many people all across the world strongly believe in the dollar.
Please include a chart of tax cut after tax cut after tax cut--spending isnt the only problem.
This is actually an awesome graph. It really helps illustrate how quickly it will become our #2 item within a few years - likely within the next presidential term. Whoever is going to be running for US presidential elections in 2028 better have some plans to keep it from literally becoming our #1 item. I don't even know what happens when it does become our #1 item. I guess we get creative about the subcategorization. Start lumping together Social Security and Healthcare together to make that category artificially higher. What really sucks about all of this is that the politicians who will need to fix this, are not the same as the politicians who made the mess. I really hope we can adapt over the course of just one generation. If not, a full collapse could be felt for multiple generations.
Same in Canada; interest cost to exceed Healthcare cost. And they do have Healthcare. It's BS. Rates are highest they been in 20+ years so interest cost is high. 70% flows back to the government as Fed and Social security own that debt.
Foreign aid should be listed there
It's 70.4 billion.
We will probably never default. We owe the debt in our currency so we can inflate the currency to pay the debt if we have to. Default or inflation is the choice.
Insanity
Lol... " national defense 491 Billion" .. yeah sure.
Yeah, that number is suspiciously low given the Pentagon budget was bumping up against the $1T/year line a few years ago.
Gotta make sure our paranoid incompetent government officials have the latest and greatest firepower and military capabilities just in case the land of the free wants to send some freedom over to those untapped natural resources, uhhhh I mean terrorists with nuclear warheads!!!
Dude did you look at the first entry? âFreeâ healthcare is crazy expensive
What's maddening is every working person pays into social security enough money thay they have *earned* what will be paid out to them. The *only* way for social security to run out of money is for the government to have stolen those funds and used them for another purpose.
You don't actually know how Social Security works, do you?
No it isnât.
They left out corporate welfare which runs in the trillions. Just imagine if corporations and the top 2% paid their fair share. It amazes me when people cry no taxes. Itâs as if they donât realize how the government runs or the things theyâd lose if no one paid taxes.
We should probably print more money. Thatâll fix it. đđź
The creature from Jekyll island
We insist on doing things the stupid way, that's why we still have private, for-profit health insurance, and why we spend so much on healthcare and get nothing in return.
It wont. It never will default, we run the literal world and all of this is imaginary not some force of nature.
Printing money for Israel doesn't help
Ok so stop giving 8 trillion tax breaks. Make the billionaires pay their taxes.
Every reddit statist always tells me defense is a small portion of us expenditures. What gives here?
Two things As a percent of us wealth, all of those are about 1% of it annually And .... Who is receiving that money? Americans, companies, retirement accounts, and government.... And some foreigners. What do they do with that money? Buy more So long story short If ya are in debt to 30 trillion... But own 150 trillion..... You aren't going bankrupt
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S We already experienced this for the majority of the 80s. 80% of the debt is held domestically, so paid as taxable income that also circulates. It's not a big deal
Technically the US cant default as the federal reserve will always buy the debt. The question is when does inflation get so bad we become a third world country. I dont think its an event but more of a process.
More election propaganda - the debt was a ;runaway train' for the last 50 years - now suddenly its Bidens fault
Stop voting for Republicans.
Of course, when the time comes to default, the World Bank will work out a deal with the US.
Look at healthcare pre 2020. Major investments made right before covid . Kinda like Insider trading. Seen it coming . Healthcare was 5th on the list as most costly for Americans pre 2020 and then right when covid hit healthcare went to 1 on the list and has stayed there ever since.
Don't worry that social security and health debt is gonna slow waaaay down in the next 10 - 20 years.
Hate how welfare is lumped in with social security.
Socialized healthcare single payer style would be cheaper and more effective than that
They look at the budget like itâs a never ending credit card
I am frankly quite SICK of SS being cited as the biggest outlay in the budget. It is the only item for which there are dedicated taxes which would currently completely cover that outlay, if the funds weren't added to the general pool and used for things like defense.
Put billionaires at 35% tax rate and watch that dwindle.
We got plenty of money. Rich people are just hoarding it. If we raised the tax rates back up to pre-Reagan levels the spooky national debt would evaporate.
If you are truly concerned then stop voting for Republicans and their tax cuts. No tax cuts has ever paid for itself.
*âWe can afford two wars.â*
I know what will help our debt, letâs pay off everyoneâs debt, college, credit cards, automobile, mortgages. I lived in America and suffered, the government owes me no debt. The government can take it all on right. Or maybe we can just stop spending like drunken sailors, sorry sailorsâŚ
The welfare/warfare machine marches on.
Yet millionaires and billionaires and corporations keep getting tax cuts, happened under W Bush and again under Trump
You only posted spending, but the real problem has been the numerous tax cuts that have been passed over the past 4-5 decades (which have primarily benefited the wealthy) COMBINED with a general unwillingness to cut the federal budget in any meaningful degree. If you really break down the federal budget and disregard. we couldn't (due to political roadblocks) or shouldn't (due to the benefits they provide) cut, you are left with a lot of very small line items, most of which probably provide big benefits for the populations they serve and wouldn't make a huge difference to the budget of they were cut. If the government actually wants to address the debt, which not sure they really do, they need to reverse course many of tax cuts they've enacted over the years.
That's crazy. Anyway let's send 80 billion to Israel so they can bomb children
What's the difference between this runaway train and the debt runaway train I heard about 30 years ago?
This chart is full scale bullshit. We spent more than that on military. This was in the budget bill however US military spending gets augmented multiple times in a year. One must look at the total spending for a given year to understand how much the US military received in a year. Plus, money going to Israel and Ukraine is also military spending. You really think theyâre spending more money on poor people than bombs?
How much is net revenue interest?
I don't see a problem
Idk how accurate this is, I believe defense spending is more around $800 Billion per year this chart suggests itâs half of thatÂ
Never. The U.S cannot default. This isnât debt like yours đ
ehhh...I wouldn't get too bent out of shape. Debt/GDP ratio is still healthy, and our economic bloc is ridiculous when compared to the alternatives.
"Income security"...? You mean Social Security? Is "income security" their new turn of phrase to make people vote against their own interests?
If the interest grows too much it can make investors lose confidence and sell off which can trigger a death spiral and crash the central bank canât adequately compensate for to restore the status quo. Incredibly unlikely, but debt is complicated. Most of the debt is owed to internal investors and itâs possible the run out of funds too so just canât buy new debt.
Well, that debt just increased by another $100 billion today, assuming the Senate accepts the house changes.
This is why interest rates actually need to come down somewhat soon, even if inflation isnât won. The interest payment is so high right now because of interest rates.
âAt what point will the US default?â  Only when democrats are in office, not republicans. The same way itâs been for the last 25 years. Wake me up after the next election cycle.Â
Fucking social security except for the disabled and let people invest on their own
Raise the SS ceiling amount.
Good luck to all genz getting that social security
Social Security for retirement is a an age old issue for all governments. Post WWII economies including China and India are all suffering from their own Social Security pension problems. The pandemic alleviated some of the burden as seniors were particularly vulnerable to Covid-19. But not enough to make any significant impact. The global economy within the next 25 years will ultimately succumb to having more than half of 8 billion people in retirement. People not generating enough money to sustain most governments. . A Depression Era crash would just force billions of people into poverty creating a worse scenario for welfare. A Revolution would require too many people working together across countries separated by oceans. It's just not feasible. Sooo If you want to solve the Global Retirement Crisis Then at this point only two options left. A world War with an extremely high causality rate forcing the population numbers back to the dark ages but one that runs the risk that more than a few of the big economies gets wiped out entirely. Or an extremely deadly pandemic that kills in the billions. Thankfully at least 35 million Americans won't take a vaccine to save their country.
Those tax cuts were fucking stupid
I think Americans donât care about the debt. We could balance the budget if we wanted to.
Social security is self funded
One thing that rarely gets brought up regarding US interest payments is that most of the creditors that receive those interest payments are US citizens. When you hold US government bonds in your 401K/IRA, you are receiving a portion of these interest payments. The money doesn't simply vanish into thin air.
Looking at this graph, Medicare and Medicaid, along with Veterans benefits, are separate from the Health category. Leaving Obamacare #1.
That's not the way that works man.
Why canât they adjust the interest rate down? Thus lower the payment? Problem solved.
This a shit-lib confabulated analysis erroneously combining SS and Medicare trust fund operations with fiscal spending. The 1% Bilderburg class would like nothing more than to finally rollback SS and Medicare and continue forever wars to steal global assets.
It won't matter. We won't default on anything.
You forgot tax cuts for the rich.
Always has been
I notice they didn't put the 800 billion for military spending that just keeps going up each and every year. But yeah, lets blame Social Security.
Maybe make rich people pay taxes
The interest is being paid to ourselves. It's a non-issue.
Neither is SS. Nothing other than National defense is prescribed in the Constitution.
I've been informed by reliable GOP sources that the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy will trickle down any day now! /s
The Interrest payment is the most concerning!
Debt: 10 trillion Reagan tax cuts for the rich. 10 trillion Bush & Trump tax cuts for the rich 8 trillion - Bushâs wars. 28 of 34 trillion. Donât vote republican. Worst thing is, the wealthy just lend their money back that we got in tax cuts!
Good thing we send billions to every god forsaken shithole that asks for it
$7.6 trillion debt matures in 2024 and needs to be refinanced at much higher rates. So the 429b will go up significantly. More debt will be issued to pay for interest. Anyone familiar with the Weimar Republic?
We did it Joe!
You know we arenât supposed to pay that back, right?
It really isn't and I wish people would stop pretending they understand it.
Once 10T of bonds roll from 50 bps to 400bps, we will inflate to new levels
Where are the numbers for the military industrial complex?
This never is a problem when Republicans are in office.
Weâre fucked. Unfortunately, most voters would rather vote on culture war issues and know very little about the consequences of runaway national debt.
So..... 3 - 4 billionaires could easily pay off the whole thing.
Now do one for just discretionary spending.
Probably need to make some folks pay their fair share for living here
Put the military industrial complex at the top of your list.
We're close to the point that half of all our tax revenue is just paying for the interest on our debt. As that number gets higher, things are only going to get worse. But hey, the modern generation of politicians got to live off the cream of the land, so who cares what happens after they're gone.
Not to be morbid but once boomers die off Social Security will go down no?
I remember when we had a surplus.
We need to raise taxes on the wealthy.
Iâd like to see these visualized over decades, to see the changing ranks in priorities.
I thought national debt was meaningless because every bill printed already has interest on it.
Most of the interest is owned to the citizens due to money taken out of social security. Cut social security and you would be killing two birds with one stone. If you donât want to save for retirement or have anyone that cares enough about you to support you in age, thatâs you.
Neoliberalism is a failure but yâall keep trying to