How to understand the Cult of Trump and to defeat it

wim

@0tolerance4silence said:
About military on few streets in a big country…

Not gonna touch the rest of the post. I wouldn't know how anyway. 😂

Ultimately yes, it’s the debt. But US had always been able to manage its enormous debt by having ‘friends’ who would finance it.

I should have been more clear. It's not the debt. It's the interest on the debt. Very soon now that will be unsustainable. The top expenditures right now are:

• Social Security: 22%
• Medicare: 14%
• Interest: 14%
• Health: 13%
• Defense: 13%

(Source: Treasury.gov)

We have a $1,630 billion deficit right now. We have $933 billion in interest expense. You read that right almost 60% of our borrowing requirement is ... to pay interest on what we've already borrowed.

Take a look at where that's projected to go in the next 10 years. Soon it will be the single biggest expense of the US government. I don't see us borrowing our way out of that mess.

Elon's buddies little piddly savings don't even register on that scale. What happens to that little bit of pocket change makes good political news fodder, but it's nothing in the grander scale of things.

Simon

@wim said:
The top expenditures right now are:

• Social Security: 22%
• Medicare: 14%
• Interest: 14%
• Health: 13%
• Defense: 13%

So... what areas would the politicians have the guts to cut? Anything?

wim

@Simon said:

@wim said:
The top expenditures right now are:

• Social Security: 22%
• Medicare: 14%
• Interest: 14%
• Health: 13%
• Defense: 13%

So... what areas would the politicians have the guts to cut? Anything?

Short answer? Nothing. But I don't blame only the politicians.

It would help if at least they would clearly articulate the situation and at least try to talk together about what to do. It's a bi-partisan problem. But nobody sees it for what it is.

Social Security and Medicare are supposedly non-discretionary spending. They're expected to increase in the future as more of the population ages. That don't leave much to work with. Here's the rest of the spending:

• Income Security (Welfare): 10%
• Veterans Benefits and Services: 5%
• Education and Social Services: 3%
• Transportation: 2%
• Natural Resources and Environment: 1%
• Other: 3%

The time to act was more than a decade ago. I honestly don't know what can be done about this now other than pray for increased revenue.