#Politics From #WaPo: U.S. payments on debt interest increased to $659 billion this year.
"Within three years, if interest rates remain elevated, payments on the debt could become the second-largest federal program — behind only Social Security, which provides pensions for tens of millions of seniors, analysts say."
@WordsmithFL Or we could tax billionaires.
@MidnightRider Yeppers ... I worked for a few years as a budget analyst for a city in California. It's not that hard to figure out. Expenditures can't exceed revenues.
As far as I know, every state, county and city in the U.S. by law is required to have a balanced operating budget. Only the U.S. can go into debt, because it has to be the bank of last resort in case of emergency (war, recession, etc.).
Dick Cheney's "deficits don't matter" philosophy wrecked the federal budget process.
@WordsmithFL The rates on the wealthy were eye watering when FDR was president. Somehow, they managed to build iconic empires with what was left. The same sum the GOP tricks their members into thinking is a very small meager net earning.
@MidnightRider This is a type of societal Darwinism that began with Reagan. Rich people are successful, therefore they deserve to be rewarded by being even richer.
@WordsmithFL @MidnightRider It's like they don't realize (or don't care) that is inherently a feedback loop which - if taken to its logical extreme - would only end once *literally all wealth* was in the hands of a single individual.
Which means nobody else gets any food or water.
Which means everyone else dies.
Of course, in reality people would (hopefully) revolt and kill the greedy, defective maniac(s) trying to starve us all out long before it got that bad, but still.
@IrelandTorin The reason for our constitutional republic is that the framers understood the need for the masses to have a means of participating in their government. Our system may be messy, but in general it works.
When people feel powerless, it becomes violent. The 1960s ghetto riots and campus demonstrations are two examples. #Trump tapped into the racists and uneducated to create his thug army.
Another revolution will happen if the Republicans impoverish us all.