aTmAg said:

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And DOGE can't do anything without the consent of the RINOs in congress. I expect DOGE to last a year tops as when Musk and Vivek leave in frustration.

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This. Everyone is putting a lot of Hope in DOGE. Hope is not a strategy as someone famously said. Congress has no desire to cut spending.

DOGE has no power other than the bully pulpit so it will take massive, unprecedented social media X pressure by Elon and Vivek to get anything done at all. At most, we may get some Discretionary cuts but they will be rounding errors.

Our deficit this last year was $1.8T. Discretionary spending is $1.8T. So, you have to cut ALL Discretionary just to break even on the year and then you have to maintain that discipline for many years to get the debt down.

We are f'ed and everyone is delusional about what DOGE can and will do.

The answer is simple. You cut any government programs that pays for someone else's personal family expenses.

Food.
Shelter.
Healthcare.

That solves everything.

YouBet said:

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aTmAg said:

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And DOGE can't do anything without the consent of the RINOs in congress. I expect DOGE to last a year tops as when Musk and Vivek leave in frustration.

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This. Everyone is putting a lot of Hope in DOGE. Hope is not a strategy as someone famously said. Congress has no desire to cut spending.

DOGE has no power other than the bully pulpit so it will take massive, unprecedented social media X pressure by Elon and Vivek to get anything done at all. At most, we may get some Discretionary cuts but they will be rounding errors.

Our deficit this last year was $1.8T. Discretionary spending is $1.8T. So, you have to cut ALL Discretionary just to break even on the year and then you have to maintain that discipline for many years to get the debt down.

We are f'ed and everyone is delusional about what DOGE can and will do.

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can "somewhat" understand the public being excited about DOGE (a generally nonexistent (and certainly not governmental) entity with zero power as you indicate and named literally with sarcasm). But when the politicians talk about "needing DOGE" or "hoping DOGE cuts X", as some politicians have, it's amazing. Congress has deferred to the executive for way too long and now some are now deferring to a non existent powerless (other than microphone) entity. We need the microphone for sure.

Tom Fox said:

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The answer is simple. You cut any government programs that pays for someone else's personal family expenses.

Food.
Shelter.
Healthcare.

That solves everything.

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Sure, and it will never happen.

tysker said:

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When DOGE reduces SS and Medicare by 20%, watch all the Boomer Trump voters come crawling asking for more handouts and welfare

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Let me just tell you now that isn't happening. Better to know it ahead of time than be let down later on.

I do envy your optimism though.

Then it all burns down. Supporting people is not supposed to be a government function.

Tom Fox said:

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Then it all burns down. Supporting people is not supposed to be a government function.

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Yep, which is more likely than spending getting cut. It will only get cut when it's too late. And it's arguably (almost certainly) already too late.

Inflation or deflation...doesn't really matter. People starve.

Advice: Keep a small portion of your wealth in hard assets; outside the current system.

YouBet said:

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Our deficit this last year was $1.8T. Discretionary spending is $1.8T. So, you have to cut ALL Discretionary just to break even on the year and then you have to maintain that discipline for many years to get the debt down.

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Half of that is the military.

tysker said:

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When DOGE reduces SS and Medicare by 20%, watch all the Boomer Trump voters come crawling asking for more handouts and welfare

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Is 20% what Elon is saying now, or is that before he said he wasn't going to be able to cut 2 trillion like he originally thought?

Just trying to get a hold on what we'll really see DOGE being able to do.

YokelRidesAgain said:

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YouBet said:

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Our deficit this last year was $1.8T. Discretionary spending is $1.8T. So, you have to cut ALL Discretionary just to break even on the year and then you have to maintain that discipline for many years to get the debt down.

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Half of that is the military.

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Which, unlike paying for people's individual needs, is a core function of our federal government.

Cut the leeches loose.

MemphisAg1 said:

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Can you tell me any other entity that continued to spend past their means with no consequences?

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The best example at present is probably Japan. Their debt to GDP ratio is over 250%, and more than twice ours.

Although this is certainly not without significant consequences, to date it has not resulted in widespread societal or even economic collapse.

Current fiscal policy will inevitably lead to some combination of higher inflation, higher taxes, and less government services in the end. It is not clear, however, that this is going to occur as some kind of a catastrophic "event" that we will be able to point to on the calendar, like the 1929 market crash.

Tom Fox said:

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Which, unlike paying for people's individual needs, is a core function of our federal government.

Cut the leeches loose.

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OK. The majority of leechery is committed by old retired people who are relying on government programs that pay out more than they take in. Those people vote, and they want you to keep your damn government hands off of their Medicare. How do you propose to bring about your solution?

Japan is a very unique, homogeneous culture and society. Those folks are willing to suffer and sacrifice without complaint for the good of the collective. Absolutely no comparison to the US and thus any conclusion based on that country is farcical.

Agree, it is not clear that it will lead to a catastrophic crash. It could be a long, drawn out period of economic misery. But it is also not clear that it won't lead to a crash. Or maybe a combination of the two... a crash followed by a long period of misery.

Who knows? Anybody who says they do is just yapping their gums.

What we do know is the ingredients are here -- and getting worse -- because our politicians refuse to change course.

YokelRidesAgain said:

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Funky Winkerbean said:

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The interest on our debt exceeds tax revenue. This means we have to print money to keep our government functioning and printed money leads to inflation.

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This isn't true, or even close to being true. US federal revenue in FY2023 was about 4.5 trillion dollars, with interest payments on the debt being about 660 billion.

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You are only partially right here and perhaps the reality is what they are talking about when it comes to talking debt bomb. I don't watch or listen to anything Blaze related so I'm unsure of context.

It's true that interest pmt on debt is not close to Fed tax revenue . Back in 21 the deficit plus interest on debt was certainly close if not over tax revenue. That deficit did go back down however.

Using FY23 paints much rosier picture on interest pmt on debt. FY23 is Oct 22 - Sep 23. We are in the middle of FY 25 at this point and we are going to pass $1T.

The scary part here is that from 2018-2023 the interest on debt doubled from 300B to your stated 660B.

This number is set to double again in less time from 2023-2026.

Our interest on debt was about 1.75% of GDP back in 2019. It's approaching 3.5% of GDP now.

Meanwhile the deficit spending continues to grow.

This entire conversation doesn't even touch what is going on with unfunded liabilities.

People need to wake up. Something radical needs to happen. DOGE won't event scratch the surface if entitlements are off the table for reform. Clinton and the 95 GOP Congress proved things can be done to start going in the right direction but 1999- 2024 showed that both GOP and Dems have a way for allowing things to go way off the rails very fast.

Radical economic growth will certainly help if it's possible, but the balance between austerity and economic growth will be tricky. Debt and Deficit spending was a manageable problem for several decades. It's now close to spiraling out of control.

YokelRidesAgain said:

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Tom Fox said:

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Which, unlike paying for people's individual needs, is a core function of our federal government.

Cut the leeches loose.

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OK. The majority of leechery is committed by old retired people who are relying on government programs that pay out more than they take in. Those people vote, and they want you to keep your damn government hands off of their Medicare. How do you propose to bring about your solution?

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Term limits. So the majority of reps can vote for what is actually best for the country without focusing on reelection.

The old people, of which I am now one but not quite SS/medicare age, can either adapt or die.

Edit: Ending universal suffrage would be the best solution.

Greece is probably a good model for what's coming for us. During their austerity period, they reached 25% unemployment with youth unemployment reaching 50%. A significant portion of the population fell into proverty. Public spending was dramatically cut. There was a deep, long recession.

The difference is that we have a very racially and ethnically diverse country compared to Greece, in fact compared to every country on earth. I predict we tear ourselves apart because of it.

Eta: we also have half of the country trying to move the country to socialism. The Dems are full blown Marxists now. That dynamic will also play itself out

DCAggie13y said:

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They can also raise taxes.

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Sure, but not by enough.

Jeeper79 said:

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DCAggie13y said:

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They can also raise taxes.

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Sure, but not by enough.

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And on whom? The top 1% already pays almost 50% of all fed income taxes and the bottom 50% pays almost zero.

So, I would assume he means on the bottom 50%.

That should be done along with gutting entitlements.

Funky Winkerbean said:

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The interest on our debt exceeds tax revenue. This means we have to print money to keep our government functioning and printed money leads to inflation.

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34 people starred this

DOGE is nothing more than an idea generator . They will come up with some good ideas and some bad ones and perhaps some of the good ones will gain momentum and get implemented but they are unlikely to recommend anything and see it be implemented that is going to be a game changer . Maybe will see some positive incremental impact . I hope so . They will just be a policy influencer at best .

Last 30 years they been saying the US economy is going to implode well?

HoustonAg9999 said:

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Last 30 years they been saying the US economy is going to implode well?

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Perhaps they have been saying it because the math doesn't lie. What many accept as reality is wholesale fraud; all thanks to central banking and Keynes. Smirk, gloat, smear, chortle...whatever you like. There's always a reckoning after the lies and frauds are exposed. As long as all of this has been going on, we probably have a 100+ year reckoning coming our way.

TheWoodlandsTxAg said:

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Daniel Horowitz and Steve Deace of the Blaze both keep saying everyday they are going to drop a huge debt bomb on Trump's lap during his second term. They are saying this debt bomb will lead to a 2008 level market correction or even a 1930s style depression unless Trumps takes major steps to stop it.

After going through horrible inflation and skyrocketing prices during the Biden admin, the country cannot take anymore financial uncertainty.

Deace and Horowitz are saying Trump needs to use budget reconciliation to make real major cuts to spending and entitlements like Medicaid, Food stamps, SNAP, WIC, TANF, Obamacare subsidies, and IRA aka Biden's Green New Scam to try to lessen the blow.

Hopefully Scott Bessent knows what he is doing. I don't know anything about him. Jerome Powell should also have his job performance evaluated by Trump.

I do know that Russell Vought, who will be the new director of OMB, is the best pick Trump has made for his new administration according to Ned Ryun and Tucker Carlson.

I just don't understand what this debt bomb, that could lead to a depression like the 1930s or a major recession like 2008-2009, Deace and Horowitz keep talking about is?

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OP, I know about 30% to 40% of the folks here know this, but a debt bomb means outrageous inflation at the debt reaches $50 trillion to $60 trillion in only 10 years at 5% interest.

The only choice is to inflate the dollar to such a high sum to pay our debt interest with dollars that are worth massively less than our dollars today. It's either that or declare bankruptcy and your debt problem will be solved for good.

This isn't difficult. To me, if someone wants the proverbial "global government", they're going to HAVE to get rid of America, and in order to do that, they absolutely have to get rid of our constitution, which a debt bomb will do. Once you get to the inflationary spiral, the masses will be constantly told, similar to the thousands of times we were told we had to have Obamacare and white supremacy was the biggest national danger.

They'll constantly be told we MUST have a new, fairer constitution, which will open us up wipe out our sovereignty.

The bubble will eventually burst.

But don't for a second trust Glenn Beck. That dude has been "guaranteeing" financial collapses "within the next 7 days" type of stuff for almost 30 years.

I've been expecting the debt to hard crash us since 1992.

Someday it will - maybe tomorrow. Maybe 2064.

sam callahan said:

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I've been expecting the debt to hard crash us since 1992.

Someday it will - maybe tomorrow. Maybe 2064.

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I know you're being sarcastic but just because it's imminent that doesn't means it's predictable. "They" are more liquid than you and I ever will be. The only thing we really can do is live our lives and be prepared for the eventual collapse, whatever prepared means to you.

What makes the "imminent" claims difficult to swallow is that they hold literally all the cards. The dollar has no rival currency and the U.S. Navy has no rival Navy. Global trade exists because we say it does and if you want to play our game you have to play it our way which means using the dollar. And you're gonna play our way because nearly all nations are net exporters and the US is the only nation accepting imports at any real volume. No matter what they make nobody is capable of consuming their own output which means they have to rely on us to pick up the slack. Those are just facts.

Worst still because there are no nations anywhere that tether their currency to hard assets there's really not anywhere to hide if you did want to abandon the dollar and go your own way. While we're sitting here lamenting how reckless our government is with the dollar and the national debt the reality is pretty much everyone else is worse as evidence by the fact we see the dollar getting stronger against pretty much all other currencies.

So yea it's a mess and in a vacuum the dollar is real trouble. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum and my guess is the game goes on much, much longer than anyone thinks it can. Their plan is to inflate their way through the boomer's retirement and go from there. That's means another 10-15 years of considerable deficit spending and inflation to pay for those deficits. After that who knows? In 15 years the dollar still won't have any rivals and the Navy will still be the world's most powerful many times over. Right now we're exporting inflation, we'll see where we are in the next decade.

That's a lot of words to say I don't believe collapse is eminent. War might be, however.

We have been bankrupt for several years.

Debt is $37 trillion, interest payments will be ~$1.3 trillion in 2025 roughly a quarter of total tax receipts for the year.

For comparison, interest payments in 2024 were larger than US defense spending (at a time we are funding israel to fight hamas/hezbolla/houthis, arm Ukraine, and modernize to keep China from doing something stupid), nearly double the size of medicaid, larger than medicare expenditures, but not quite as large as Social Security.

The government isn't retiring much debt (for you and me this is paying down your mortgage balance). When debt matures the government issues a new treasury note to pay off the old one, only now interest rates have risen. The government had been paying 0.5% interest on the 10 year treasury bills that were issued in 2015, and will have to reissue at 4.5%.

Social Security Ponzi has run its course and now is up against the baby boomer demographic time bomb. Recipients drew over $200 billion more from social security than workers paid in.

Medicare / Medicaid expenditures were $1 trillion higher than taxes raised for this program.

Fiat money systems work so long as people have faith in the institutions controlling the currency, unfortunately decades or irresponsible monetary and fiscal policy have eroded that faith.

Tag77 said:

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Deflation

Cash is king

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Cash is a melting ice cube. M2 has increased at about 8% per year. Commodities that can't be printed are preferable.

Quote:

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I know you're being sarcastic but just because it's imminent that doesn't means it's predictable.

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I wasn't being sarcastic and that it isn't predictable was exactly my point.

I couldn't articulate the points behind that as well as you did, so thanks for that.

Trigon Jin said:

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This is just an opinion, based on nada but observation.

You can't operate on a massive deficit forever.

End of story.

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A massive and exponentially growing debt.

TA-OP said:

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Ordinary Man said:

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The govt will have 3 choices: cut all spending 40%, print money which will to hyperinflation, or declare bankruptcy. None of the choices are good.

Larry Burkett predicted this in his 1980's book The Coming Economic Earthquake". The only problem was his timing was off 40 years.

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From a moderate-leftist point of view, I'd be okay with cutting 40%. My problem is where those cuts take place. Some of these departments President Trump says will be eliminated shouldn't be. But I have no problem with their budgets being scaled back. I'm sorry, but my son, after a severely life-threatening injury, benefited from Head Start. Wiping the Department of Education off the map means that we'd be living a totally different life right now. Yes, I know it's anecdotal and biased. But, let's not cut funding where societal good happens.

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the problem is that for your good example, there are 20 examples of bad from the program that are 99.9% waste and abuse.