Trump: I will eliminate U.S. debt in 8 years

a reply to: sdcigarpig

Approval of what? Paying the debt? Increasing it? I'm just pointing out that a debt owed to yourself isn't needing to be taken as seriously, as real debt.

It's almost equivalent to a 'savings' is it not? When you put a dollar in a piggy bank, you lose the dollar, but you also become in debt to yourself a dollar.

A better example however is a household. If you give your wife money, you aren't exactly needing to be repaid to benefit from the transaction. Everything she buys with it is shared by you. Similarly, if she pays you back, nothing is gained because the same money she paid you back will have inevitably gone to the same cause yet again.

It's advantageous in the countries sense to have more debt, because now everyone has money instead of few. If the debt is "repaid" we gain nothing, but have less total money.

You can argue inflation is bad, I agree, but paying debt without addressing inflation is madness. This is directly what I'm referencing when I say our definition of debt is mind numbing.

originally posted by: queenofswords
a reply to: MrSpad

The quickest way to end remove the debt over a few decades would be to go back raising taxes to where they were before in the 50s-70s but, that would mean massive tax increases for people and companies. And everybody knows tax increases mean political suicide.

In that scenario, we would have to get rid of 401(k)s and millions of Americans have their retirements invested in these companies. 401(k)s weren't even around in the 50's and 60's and early 70's.

You cannot use the 50's tax rates in todays world. I get so tired of hearing about that suggestion. It's unworkable.

Unworkable like trumps debt plan

a reply to: imjack

It's not even remotely close to that. You still have the dollar. You have no debt. You have savings.

originally posted by: pl3bscheese
a reply to: imjack

It's not even remotely close to that. You still have the dollar. You have no debt. You have savings.

Sorry but it wasn't really up for interpretation. That's how it realistically works.

We have over a Quadrillion dollars in assets, even if they're not conglomerate. People acting like we can never pay back 20 trillion in debt is laughable. What's even more laughable is who it's owed to.

The average person accounts for $50,000-$200,000 of our debt, however the average person SPENDS between 1-4 million in their life.

The debt is merely an extention of separating the money.

The true evil is how the Goverment at will can print money and increase your personal debt, thus lowering your spending power. Short of that, the discrepancy only affects people that never spend more than $200,000 in their life, because they were not given their "fair share" of the money we "borrowed".

From what I recall the U.S owes more than it can theoretically pay back, ever. I don't know what Trump's plan is, unless he is planning on cutting off every citizen in the country from any form of Government benefit, & then to tax everyone skyrocketing amounts... plus other horrifically unethical things. Or maybe I've been misled all along at how serious the U.S's debt is?

Live U.S debt clock

Forbes article on U.S debt (as of April 2015):

For example, if GDP – which is the total of all goods and services produced in the U.S. – is $17.0 trillion and the debt is the same amount, the ratio would be 100%. As the debt rises beyond GDP, the ratio will exceed 100%. This indicates that the debt is greater than the total of what we produce.

originally posted by: lydie15
Live U.S debt clock

Forbes article on U.S debt (as of April 2015):

For example, if GDP – which is the total of all goods and services produced in the U.S. – is $17.0 trillion and the debt is the same amount, the ratio would be 100%. As the debt rises beyond GDP, the ratio will exceed 100%. This indicates that the debt is greater than the total of what we produce.

The financial position of the United States includes assets of at least $269.6 trillion (1576% of GDP)

Oh wow! And that's not even counting our vague military assests because the GDP only covers expenditures!

data.worldbank.org...

According to this, our expenditures for Military are 3.5%.

So if we sold everything, we could fund our Military for 450 YEARS!

originally posted by: 0zzymand0s
? Is it even desirable ?

Or did the most basic fundamentals of economic intelligence completely skip a generation?

Enquiring minds want to know.

It is not desirable. Lets focus on if it's possible though, to that I say no. Currently we have a deficit of about 1 trillion/year and Trump wants to spend another $2 trillion/year. So we need to get to a $6 trillion budget just for that, then we would need $2 trillion to cover the existing debt. Even if we could knock off $1 trillion in current spending we're talking about a $7 trillion budget which means doubling existing revenues. There's a limit to how much we can collect in taxes, and there's a limit to what we can get in renegotiated deals. Both fall short of doubling existing revenue.

originally posted by: n00bUK
I think Trump still is'nt been stupid to his full potential. There is still more to come

Please elaborate. To state your views in 11 words doesnt cut it. Unless, there is no logical reasoning behind what you state. Mere emotional response?

originally posted by: butcherguy
What are the other candidates saying about the problem?

The only other one that I can think of that is addressing it is Bernie Sanders.... and he plans on tripling the debt!

I am not saying that he has the answer, but his answer is better than Bernie's.

Bernie is not tripling the debt, he has expressed how to pay for all of his programs, most of which are easy to pay for because they come from spending more efficiently, such as single payer rather than Obamacare. That alone frees up trillions to spend elsewhere.

originally posted by: BlueAjah
In addition to fixing trade deficits, Trump has discussed cutting back on wasteful spending.
Since he is not beholden to the special interest groups that often are the cause of wasteful spending, and because he does not owe political favors to those running agencies that spend wastefully, I think he would succeed.

He has also discussed the mistakes our country has made throwing away millions of dollars supporting other countries when our own country is in debt.

Those above who said that no debt would ruin the economy might want to think about how it works with any business, or even your home. Are you stronger financially when you are deeply in debt, or are you stronger when you are solvent and have a balanced budget?

Trump wants to expand defense spending. If you except defense, interest on the debt, and mandatory payments for social security, you are left with about 800 billion in the budget. From that comes NASA, education, roads, FDA, EPA, and just about everything else. The "wasteful" spending is capped at $800 billion, if you were to cut defense spending in half rather than double it as Trump wants you could get it to $1.2 trillion. That's the limit of what can be cut, and even then the cuts wouldn't suddenly put more money in peoples pockets because when highway funding and education is cut the states would simply pick up the tab and tax you instead (with less oversight).

a reply to: crazyewok

Sorry but you cant pay off $20 trillion in 8 years!

Why not? It only took that long to accumulate most of it...

originally posted by: BlueAjah
a reply to: 0zzymand0s

Of course a nation's budget is not the same as a household budget.

The statement was "If we ran our household budgets the way the current administration runs the budget"
Meaning - if it was run with the same carelessness, wastefulness, and disregard for getting further and further into debt.

In theory, that applies to both.

No, it doesn't. Government can create money from nothing, it can also write out ideal revenue streams (taxes), and make them happen. There is no work involved, government has multiple methods to set income to virtually any level they want it to be. They can also set debt to any level they want, it's really quite trivial. There is nothing in common with government finance and personal/professional budgeting.

If we wanted to, in a method much easier than Trump is proposing, we could fully eliminate the national debt tomorrow. It would require 3 strokes of a pen: 1. to inflate the currency, 2. to pay off the debt. 3. to deflate the currency. It wouldn't happen though because people invest in government. Especially American Citizens. Those bonds we buy and sit on? People plan on them as a safe and reliable method of retirement. The government isn't going to destroy that. Most peoples retirements are reliant on the national debt, eliminating it would wipe everyone out. On top of that it would destroy confidence in the dollars, so whatever you didn't lose is now worthless.

originally posted by: pl3bscheese
a reply to: ugie1028

There's several ways to prove this false.

The easiest would be take a look at the total assets of the US in comparison to our debt. We have much more in assets than debt.

Another way of looking at this, is to realize the creation of value is not entirely tied into the circulation and creation of currency.

Perhaps this may set the record straight

US Debt Clock Real Time

originally posted by: Gothmog
a reply to: crazyewok

Sorry but you cant pay off $20 trillion in 8 years!

Why not? It only took that long to accumulate most of it...

That's a pretty dumb comment

Anyone with a brain knows debts easier to get into than out.

Most that 20 trillion is gone.
Poof

Its been wasted on social programs, pork barrel spending, dodgy defence contracts, bailing out banks and some of its literally gone up in flames in the form of bombs.
Not to mention the militarization of police and supplying arms to terrorists/ foreign aid.

Sure you can stop that and reducing the spending.

But that £20 trillions has been pissed away.

Best you can do is reduce the deficiet and pay it back slowly.

O and not it was not all done under Obama over the last 8 years.

I think 8-10 trillion was spent under bush.

So blame bush and Obama

a reply to: crazyewok
First , that was meant as a little poke at our current Admin
Second , you better check your figures again. Obama's spending has equaled or exceeded all other Presidents added together.

the current US Budget is 3.5 trillion/year

this would require slashing spending and making payments of 2.3 trillion a year.

originally posted by: NthOther
I don't know why everyone gets excited about paying off their parents' and grandparents' selfish excesses. Sure, it would be great to be out of debt, but...

I'm not responsible for this bulls#. I'm not paying for previous generations' wars and entitlements I never had the option of endorsing or rejecting, but am now stuck financing like some kind of damn born slave.

No thanks. Find someone else to bail you out, Gramps.

I'm sure someone beat me to this.

But Obama jacked it up $10 trillion on his own, in the last 8 yrs.

So there!

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: butcherguy
What are the other candidates saying about the problem?

The only other one that I can think of that is addressing it is Bernie Sanders.... and he plans on tripling the debt!

I am not saying that he has the answer, but his answer is better than Bernie's.

Bernie is not tripling the debt, he has expressed how to pay for all of his programs, most of which are easy to pay for because they come from spending more efficiently, such as single payer rather than Obamacare. That alone frees up trillions to spend elsewhere.

Like cutting waste as Trump has been saying?

How is bernie gonna cover that fed $15 hr min wage he wants?

How is bernie gonna make more money for the govt?

originally posted by: Gothmog
a reply to: crazyewok
First , that was meant as a little poke at our current Admin
Second , you better check your figures again. Obama's spending has equaled or exceeded all other Presidents added together.

Obama racked up $1 tril on shovel ready jobs alone.

Obamacare will cost $2 tril, it seems.

"Please be aware the cost estimates are changed on a regular basis and are often quoted as being between $1 and $2.6 trillion depending on a variety of factors, such as when the report was done, who did the reporting, and the time-span that the report referenced."

and that's from the website, I probably could get higher figures elsewhere.

obamacarefacts.com...