Why do c0ns think the debt needs to be paid RIGHT THIS SECOND? Don't they know how credit and loans work?

[pdooma]

You know if we add less to the debt the number goes up more slowly, right?

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

[Sam]

Conservatives just want debt control. Do you know how credit and loans work, you have to pay them back. And you can't just pay everything off credit, unless you want to bankrupt yourself. Its not fair to the future generations that they are going to inherit a huge amount of debt, so that we could get stimulus bills, health care, and other government assistance we couldn't afford in the first place.

[Hello]

no one wants to be in someone elses back pocket. The more debt you have the more interest you pay; the bigger the debt gets the bigger the risk to the lender so you get charged a higher interest rate because you are seen as a high risk to lend to. Maybe the government should take a look at people who live within their budgets and pay off their home loans first before buying other stuff. Pay off your loans then you'll have more cash to spend...

[Lloyd J]

The US has dug the biggest debt hole in history and all we are asking is to stop digging. No-one is asking to pay it off. Do you know how long it is going to take to pay off a 16 trillion dollar debt? We may not even be able to make the interest payments. Wake up!!

[electricpole]

Let me guess, you think credit and loans work like the student loans you took for $175K, to land a $28 K job, and then skipped out on and no one has come after you yet right?

[BekindtoAnimals22]

First they have to stop spending over a trillion per year more than we take in. The huge deficits lead to more and more debt. Paying down the debt will require major expansion in the private sector but that will never happen under this administration. Everything he does just chokes it.

[Bad Wolf]

Yes. A lender takes a look at your income to determine if you are able to pay back the loan.

If not, you can't borrow any more money.

[Spock (rhp)]

the big issues with the government debt are:

1. it exceeds 90% of GDP -- the level found by Rinehart and Rogoff to cause a reduction in economic growth [in their 2011 paper].

2. it is growing faster than the economy [the deficit is a larger percentage of the economy than the growth rate], so the problem is becoming worse with each passing day.

and 3. somewhere that no one knows out there, the debt market will wake up one day and realize that Congress isn't balancing the budget, isn't reducing the debt to GDP ratio, and isn't going to. At that point, the interest rate demanded by the market to carry the debt will soar

-- if it soars from the present 1.5% to only 4.5% [Spain's was recently over 7%] that added 3% has to come out of current spending IMMEDIATELY. If it doesn't, the market demands even more interest and the spiral deepens. at our debt level [about 100% of GDP in the near future], 3% added interest is 3% of the entire economy and about one spending dollar in eight for the whole government. As present experience shows, cutting 12.5% [one in eight] from all spending is near impossible -- certainly Social Security recipients would scream if their benefits were cut 12.5% and then they'd howl for blood when their Medicare copays more than double as well.

Another way to get the 3% posited here would be to IMMEDIATELY raise all income taxes by 1/3rd or to IMMEDIATELY increase payroll taxes by 5.1% of pre-tax pay. Workers would probably take up arms in resistance if the government did that.

[Oldwhiteguy2earth]

I think we should have a balanced economy, with absolutely no debt. The Administration says we should have $16 trillion debt. Let's compromise and stop spending until we get back to $8 trillion debt.

Right now, every tax paying household owes about $200,000 to someone, not including the mortgage, car loans and credit card balances.