Milestone marks years of government spending that grew under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden
US debt reached $40tn for the first time on Wednesday, the US treasury department said, after the government deficit doubled over the last decade.
The treasury’s latest debt balance showed $40.047tn on Tuesday afternoon, the highest in US history.
The milestone marks years of government spending that grew under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. During his first term, Trump approved $8.4tn worth of debt, with a huge chunk going to Covid-19 relief spending, while Biden approved $4.3tn worth of debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
I recently watched a very educational Gary’s Economics video about government debt, called ‘to lower taxes we need to raise taxes’
Basically since Reagan and Thatcher, the super rich have accumulated real assets that used to be owned by the government and the middle class.
Under capitalism, wealth creates wealth in an exponential manner. Now the wealthy own almost everything.
Government services cost more because governments sold most of their assets and have to pay the private sector to deliver services. At the same time, the required level of services is higher because more of the population is living in poverty.
The only way to reverse this and escape feudalism is to tax wealth. But even this would be slow. There needs be a lump sum transfer of the majority of assets back to the people. We would have to seize >50% if assets on death.
And the penalty for companies breaking the law should be mandatory acquisition by the govt at severe discount.
Big corp is way too infiltrated into American politics for any tax or inheritance law reform to the detriment of the 1% to even be spoken about in the house or senate. It’s far too late to make a change “for the people”.