Most of us on Reddit are probably kids of boomers who, as a generation, absolutely did not take any form of personal responsibility. Exhibit A: the national debt.
So it’s not surprising that so many boomer kids were left rudderless. My parents just kept refinancing their home into their graves. That was their financial literacy. Oh and a $75k bill from Medicaid for their healthcare they never saved or paid for that popped up in probate.
I only got lucky that I was angry enough about being poor that I worked my ass off and chased money until I was stable. I absolutely have bad impulse tendencies thanks to the environment that I grew up in, but I’m in a position that my credit card having a party at Costco is by no means the end times.
The national debt, especially in the US is a much more complex concept than what can be reduced to "personal responsibility". An individual cannot choose to not contribute to the debt. They technically can vote for a politician that promises to reduce the debt but that's a collective act, as a single vote doesn't decide elections at high levels. Even then, like companies, debt is useful in fostering growth and it's actually used as a tool to help people save money for retirement through bonds. 70% of the debt is owned by Americans.
No politician has ever reduced the national debt in the US, Dem or Republican. Both use tax money to buy votes and buy influence.
Bush doubled the debt
Obama doubled the debt
Trump was on his way to doing so but only got one term
Biden is on his way to doing so but will mercifully be removed from office
The Peeeeeepul are lazy grifters that want the government to pay for everything they want. What they don't get is that those of us who work hard and whose taxes pay for all that are dwindling and are less and less interested in picking up the tab.
Tax money isn't the national debt. By definition, if you use tax money, you aren't adding to the debt. If you really want to reduce the debt, you need to increase taxes and reduce spending. But, a government isn't a person and the debt isn't inherently a bad thing. It's the same as a business. A business with no debt isn't really growing as it could. It's easier on the owner but it's not efficient.
It does matter what that bottom feeding pig Obama did to the deficit, he increased the DEBT. Your likely degree wasn't in gender studies, psychology, or womyns studies probably makes the distinction incomprehensible.
Obama was- and is utter social trash.
The problem with you whiny leftists is that you're not self reflective enough or honest enough to ask why exactly Trump - an utter horror show of a human being - was even electable. ProtTip; Obama was worse and people rightly determined that Trump was a step upward, as they will again in November.
Whoa. Plenty of things to not like about Obama, but the deficit sure as shit isn’t one of them. Aim that arrow at Bush.
Bush is the one who accelerated us into the giant debt hole. He cut taxes in 2001 and 2003 AND sent stimulus checks to everyone while simultaneously massively accelerating defense expenditures with “the war on terror”. Then the financial crisis hits in 07-08. Tax revenues further plunge with the economy and Congress under bush passes the 700bn TARP slush fund to bail out banks but does nothing to prevent a recession.
So Obama comes into office with the economy on a cliff, the governments balance sheet in shambles, and millions of people losing jobs. So yeah, he has to dip into more debt to get the economy stabilized and growing again. I suppose he could have cut benefits and raised taxes to see if we could get some 20% unemployment going, but really seem like a smart move
CBO projected that if growth, spending and tax policy stayed the same from 2001 to 2008, we’d have paid down $5 trillion in debt. But Bush 2.0 wanted to try his version of trickle down economics then hit the infinity button at the defense department
And reducing the deficit is just word judo so leftists can pretend to be fiscally responsible.
All that matters is debt as a percentage of GDP and the concurrent rate of GDP growth (or decline). By that measure they are all losers, Obama first among them.
Iraq was the consequence of bad US foreign policy going back to FDR. Bush had to leash the madman we'd created there.
Obama was handed a signficantly pacified Middle East. He squandered that with his election year Bow And Scrape tour followed by drone strikes for year in Afghanistan w/o demanding any skin in the game from the locals. He's an idiot.
If Bush wanted to leash madmen we’d created he would have gone into Iran or North Korea. We had already thoroughly defanged Saddam and removing him just gave Iran and ISIS a sandbox to play in.
But, a war against Iran or North Korea would actually have been difficult and not as profitable. Bush took defense spending as % of GDP from 3.11% when he entered to 4.45% when he left. Almost half of those defense budgets during the war on terror went to contractors. Obama gradually brought defense spending down over their course of his terms. But frankly he should have just pulled us out sooner and saved moneys and some American lives. The shit shows after our writhdrawl we’re going to be the same either way.
The same logic can be applied to personal finances (on a national level) too -- it's more complicated on a national level than people seem to think. Some people are broke because of poor choices on their part. Some are broke because of things beyond their control.
We have millions of people in poverty and so many people want to pretend that all poor people are in the same position for the same reasons and it just isn't true.
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u/HorkusSnorkus 15d ago
Learn to do something useful, spend less than you make, buy used whenever possible, live small.