How should the US handle its debt?

[Rainbow Moonlight]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/w ... 967538.htm

Says Obama is tryign to get a cross party agreement.

[Leftwinger]

The US should focus on restoring it's growth and addressing it's appallingly high unemployment. Anything else is secondary at this point in time. Renewed strong growth will place downward pressure on the deficit as unemployment - and therefore government welfare payments - fall and tax receipts rise through the actions of the automatic stabalisers.

The purely ideological focus on government deficit and debt while millions of Americans languish in unemployment and poverty with few or no prospects represents a complete abandonment of the US governments primary role to safegaurd and advance the welfare of it's own people.

[annielaurie]

The US should focus on restoring it's growth and addressing it's appallingly high unemployment. Anything else is secondary at this point in time. Renewed strong growth will place downward pressure on the deficit as unemployment - and therefore government welfare payments - fall and tax receipts rise through the actions of the automatic stabalisers.

The purely ideological focus on government deficit and debt while millions of Americans languish in unemployment and poverty with few or no prospects represents a complete abandonment of the US governments primary role to safegaurd and advance the welfare of it's own people.

Lefty, I'm very impressed with your understanding of what's going on up here in my hemisphere of the world. You've written it beautifully. I want Obama to do something. They are focusing on the wrong things in Congress. I want our military brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately, our veterans' issues and concerns respected and tended to once they are home, and our tax dollars to go towards employment, small businesses, affordable housing, affordable medical care, and education for the middle classes and the poor, right here in America.

[Leftwinger]

I want Obama to do something. They are focusing on the wrong things in Congress.

Hi Annie. They certainly are focussing on the wrong things. But it isn't just the Obama administration or the US congress and senate - the bulk of the policy makers in the modern world have embraced a similar line of thinking, often on BOTH sides of politics to one extent or another. Having set an iron-clad, ideological frame around the debate of what must or can be done makes it impossible for many of the world's policy makers to think outside of that frame for solutions. This is a tradgedy when so very many are lying idle, their services unwanted by the capitalist market for a lack of overall demand, and global growth is beginning to slow once again - courtesy of the very same austerity policies being bandied about as "solutions", whether they be deliberate spending cuts or arbitrarily imposed ceilings on how much governments can spend on assuring that the well-being of their people is protected.

What the US and most other modern countries each need right now is their own Roosevelt. Tragically, they mostly seem governed by an army of Hoovers.

[Jovial Monk]

Well, in return for being able to raise some more taxes Obama is about to let Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security be sliced up, all for deficit reduction.

[annielaurie]

Hi you guys. I was just about to post about the Medicare and Social Security. What a fuckarow. If he does that, he doesn't get my vote a second time.

His Obamacare is going to be bad enough in the coming years, with its mandate to buy or else be fined thousands per year, for not having medical insurance.

We already have a privatized version of Medicare here, by the way. It's called Medicare Advantage, and it's a ripoff. At least we still have the real thing, for disabled and seniors. The last thing we need is for our real Medicare and Social Security to be butchered by him and Congress.

It's the last straw. I idolized him when he was running and when he was elected, and jumped for joy on Inauguration Day. I had hoped Obama would become our own latter day version of Roosevelt, but I guess that was too much to ask.

[Pastafarian]

His Obamacare is going to be bad enough in the coming years, with its mandate to buy or else be fined thousands per year, for not having medical insurance.

We have that in Australia, but we just take a handful of cement and get on with it.

[The Artist formerly known as Sappho]

Lefty, I'm very impressed with your understanding of what's going on up here in my hemisphere of the world. You've written it beautifully. I want Obama to do something. They are focusing on the wrong things in Congress. I want our military brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately, our veterans' issues and concerns respected and tended to once they are home, and our tax dollars to go towards employment, small businesses, affordable housing, affordable medical care, and education for the middle classes and the poor, right here in America.

With what Annielaurie? Your government is broke.

As of today, since the debt ceiling breach on May 16, the Treasury has plundered about $206 billion from the two primary retirement accounts: the G-Fund and the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, according to calculations performed by Stone McCarthy. The full breakdown for sticklers is provided below, however what is more important is that with just 4 weeks left until the D-Day, there is about $62 billion in available debt ceiling stretching options. In other words, Tim Geithner has burned through 75% of his dry powder just 50 days into the debt ceiling breach. What happens in the next few days - Stone McCarthy gives the full breakdown "Based on our projections for marketable borrowing and trust fund flows, we think Treasury would need to use about $37 billion of that $62 billion in July, and would exhaust the rest with the settlement of auctions on August 1. If things go down to the wire, Geithner could create a little more room by declaring that the Debt Issuance Suspension Period will last longer than the original May 16-August 2 timeframe, which would be reasonable if Congress hasn't acted by August 1 or August 2." Said otherwise, with the market still completely ignoring the debt ceiling situation, if nothing has changed by the last week of July, it will once again, very much retroactively, panic.
http://www.zerohedge.com/

[Jovial Monk]

US govt is not broke, it will never run out of dollars. It can pay o/seas creditors just by crediting their accounts.

It needs to create some big projects to put Americans to work, creating the money to pay the workers.

[The Artist formerly known as Sappho]

US govt is not broke, it will never run out of dollars. It can pay o/seas creditors just by crediting their accounts.

It needs to create some big projects to put Americans to work, creating the money to pay the workers.

If what you say is true, then why is there a debt ceiling? Why is the govt. taking money which is allocated to age pensions, retirement and disability? Why don't they just add some more digits to their books as you claim they can? WTF is that article about if all they need do is update their accounting books with digits and endless zero's behind them?