This is Washington Edition, the newsletter about money, power and politics in the nation’s capital. Today, economy reporter Jarrell Dillard looks at the growing national debt. Sign up here and follow us at @bpolitics. Email our editors here.

News also available in Archive today Link

America has a debt problem. And it’s not getting much attention from the contenders for the White House.

There is $27.8 trillion in debt held by the public. And this year the US is expected to run one of the largest deficits in history, which will only make the debt bigger.

Though everyone knows that spending on entitlement programs, including Social Security, is a big part of the problem, the 2024 presidential nominees are tiptoeing around the issue on the campaign trail. They’ve barely mentioned the deficit, much less offered any substantive solutions.

Spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid could reach 10.3% of gross domestic product in 2024, according to projections from the Office of Management and Budget. That compares with an 8.2% average between 1984 and 2023.

  • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.businessEnglish
    15·
    4 months ago

    And he fucking well should. People spend their lives putting money into social security

    I’ve always been confused why ANYONE would support any sort of cuts to social security after paying into it for, in some cases, literal decades.

    I mean, it’s not “free money”, it’s my fucking money, that I’ve paid into every paycheck I’ve ever gotten. Of course I feel “entitled” to it, because, well, I am?

    The republicans want to do a rugpull that’d make a crypto bro blush in how fucking brazen it is, and we’re supposed to be happy about it?

    • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      4 months ago

      I pay more for social security than state and federal taxes combined knowing full well it’ll probably be long gone before I’m old enough to collect it.

    • socphoenix@midwest.social
      2·
      4 months ago

      Most of those people I’ve met think the cuts will only affect OTHER people…

      Some just refuse to think about it while others like my parents are at least honest and expect it to just have an age cutoff that fucks their kids over. Doesn’t matter long as they get theirs basically.

      • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.businessEnglish
        2·
        4 months ago

        I don’t get that either.

        I’m not a parent and strongly unlikely to be one, but if I had kids I’d damn well do anything I had to do to make sure their life was better than mine was, not steal anything not nailed down then yank the ladder out from under them.

        Especially since the solution is ‘stop letting rich people not pay their fair share’. And like, that’s not some random talking point for the non americans here: after $168,000 in income we just… don’t tax you for social security anymore. If we left the exact same rate in place, but just taxed ALL of everyone’s income, we’d not only be solvent, we’d have a fucking scrooge mcduck style moneybin to ensure future generations were taken care of, too.