# US government will borrow almost $1 trillion this year **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 4, 2018, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137 "2018-02-04T00:50:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/1 "2018-02-04T00:50:41Z")
[Per this article in the Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/03/the-u-s-government-is-set-to-borrow-nearly-1-trillion-this-year/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_wb-borrow-135pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.66f7a4981358), the US will borrow almost $1 trillion this year, which is 84% increase over last year. The entire article is interesting, but I’ll focus here on the pieces that are relevant to the recent tax bill. As Trump and company promised, we are already seeing impacts to the economy. > [@](#): > > Treasury mainly attributed the increase to the “fiscal outlook.” The Congressional Budget Office was more blunt. In a report this week, the CBO said tax receipts are going to be lower because of the new tax law. > [@](#): > > Investors are concerned about all the additional borrowing and the likelihood of higher inflation, which is why the interest rates on U.S. government bonds hit the highest level since 2014. That, in turn, partly drove the worst weekly sell-off in the stock market in two years. I have 2 take aways from this news and the article: the obvious one, Trump has broken another promise and is raising the debt not lowering it, and secondarily, this seems to be positioning the economy for another downturn. What say the Dope? Just another bump that can be reversed before too much damage is done, or is this the one that sends the economy screaming back down? ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/2 "2018-02-04T01:30:57Z")
I honestly don’t think it will affect the economy at all unless the solution is to drastically cut gov’t spending. I’ve very curious to see how the conservatives spin this one. My guess is by blaming poor people. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/3 "2018-02-04T01:32:18Z")
I’m going to move this from Elections to Great Debates. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/4 "2018-02-04T01:44:43Z")
> [@nate](#): > > I honestly don’t think it will affect the economy at all unless the solution is to drastically cut gov’t spending. I’ve very curious to see how the conservatives spin this one. My guess is by blaming poor people. Yes. And the solution to that is to cut social security and medicare spending. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/5 "2018-02-04T01:54:22Z")
> [@](#): > > What say the Dope? Trump is an idiot who doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about or what he’s doing? That would be my assessment. He’s but his crank in a crack again (shocking, I know), because for months now he’s been saying that the stock market gains are all on him and his policies. The trouble with that is that when things go down, he is going to be hard pressed to backtrack. Though, with his base, he will probably figure out a way… > [@](#): > > Just another bump that can be reversed before too much damage is done, or is this the one that sends the economy screaming back down? Well, the debt thing is definitely going to be a huge issue that will be with us for a long while. However, the US economy is actually not in bad shape, and the world economy, especially the EU and China seem to have bounced back and are doing well, so we probably aren’t looking at dooms day just yet. I expect we shall see some corrections to the stockmarket, but I doubt the economy is going to nose dive, even with the increased debt. Not yet anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/6 "2018-02-04T02:51:34Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Trump is an idiot who doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about or what he’s doing? That would be my assessment. No argument from me on that but remember it is congress that sends a budget to the president. Sure the president can offer a budget to congress but they can ignore it if they want to and make their own. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/7 "2018-02-04T03:08:09Z")
> [@XT](#): > > The trouble with that is that when things go down, he is going to be hard pressed to backtrack. Though, with his base, he will probably figure out a way… He’ll just say whatever makes him sound good this week and his followers will believe it. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/8 "2018-02-04T03:38:16Z")
Republicans are in power. Deficit goes up. What’s the big mystery? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/9 "2018-02-04T04:41:44Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Republicans are in power. Deficit goes up. > > What’s the big mystery? Remember eight years of Obama and the republican deficit hawks threatening government shut downs over deficit spending? I do. Can’t say I am surprised to find it was all bullshit. > [@](#): > > “We are not looking for a government shutdown, but at the same time we are not looking at rubber-stamping these really high, elevated spending levels that Congress blew through the joint two years ago,” Rep. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House budget committee, told CBS. Speaker John Boehner was more blunt: “I am not going to move any kind of short-term [continuing resolution] at current levels,” he said. “When we say we’re going to cut spending, read my lips: We are going to cut spending.” > > SOURCE: [Trump orders Defense Secretary James Mattis to keep Guantanamo Bay prison open. It wasn't closing.](http://www.slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/trump-orders-defense-secretary-james-mattis-to-keep-guantanamo-bay-prison-open-it-wasnt-closing.html) ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/10 "2018-02-04T05:08:00Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Remember eight years of Obama and the republican deficit hawks threatening government shut downs over deficit spending? I do. Democrats are in power, Republicans complain about the deficit. In other breaking news, sun expected to rise in the east tomorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/11 "2018-02-04T05:32:05Z")
Deficits only matter when there’s a Democratic President or Congress. The “Party of Fiscal Responsibility” (aka The Republicans) isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/12 "2018-02-04T08:11:15Z")
And yet countless millions of people will say “I know, I have some problems with the Republican party, but I’m a fiscal conservative so I have to vote for them” and _this always goes unchecked_. No one ever challenges this premise. Somehow Republicans have grabbed the “fiscally responsible” mantra, and no one, not even their political opponents, will point out that it’s the opposite of the truth. I have no idea why no one ever challenges this because it’s trivial to prove that Republicans are the fiscally irresponsible party. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/13 "2018-02-04T08:52:28Z")
Was it widely remarked at the time, that during the 2016 election, [the interest rate on U.S. Treasury ten-year debt](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=i69s) soared by 1.0% ? Much of that increase came in a single week — guess which week? _Note that the key interest rate is even higher today than it was in the immediate aftermath of the November tragedy._ > [@XT](#): > > Trump is an idiot who doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about or what he’s doing? That would be my assessment. He’s but his crank in a crack again (shocking, I know), because for months now he’s been saying that the stock market gains are all on him and his policies. Trump is just the organ-grinder’s monkey. Even on _The Apprentice_ he just fired whomever the producers told him to. His lies are coming from and being repeated by Ryan, Pence and other Koch stooges. You make a huge misrepresentation of the on-going tragedy when you overlook this, and just focus on nonsense from the mouth of the organ-grinder’s monkey. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/14 "2018-02-04T09:39:20Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > And yet countless millions of people will say “I know, I have some problems with the Republican party, but I’m a fiscal conservative so I have to vote for them” and _this always goes unchecked_. No one ever challenges this premise. Somehow Republicans have grabbed the “fiscally responsible” mantra, and no one, not even their political opponents, will point out that it’s the opposite of the truth. > > I have no idea why no one ever challenges this because it’s trivial to prove that Republicans are the fiscally irresponsible party. I’ve been saying it for years. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/15 "2018-02-04T10:36:19Z")
1 trillion USD. 84% increase. HUUGGE! MAGA. Trump probably considers increased Fed debt as he considered the corporate debt of a property developer i.e. a means to increase leverage on his bankers. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/16 "2018-02-04T13:12:27Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > And yet countless millions of people will say “I know, I have some problems with the Republican party, but I’m a fiscal conservative so I have to vote for them” and _this always goes unchecked_. No one ever challenges this premise. Somehow Republicans have grabbed the “fiscally responsible” mantra, and no one, not even their political opponents, will point out that it’s the opposite of the truth. > > I have no idea why no one ever challenges this because it’s trivial to prove that Republicans are the fiscally irresponsible party. What gets me is the amazing long-term persistence of this myth. This summer will mark the 40th anniversary of California’s [Proposition 13](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978)). The GOP’s been pushing tax cuts over fiscal responsibility ever since. Except when they want to use fiscal responsibility as a club to kill government programs popular with Democrats, of course. A good example is right now, when the GOP didn’t even think about where the money would come from to pay for $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, but they demanded ‘pay-fors’ for the pre-Christmas extension of CHIP to the end of March, and are doing the same for [a $7.4 billion dollar bill to extend funding for community health centers for two years](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/2/16936916/community-health-centers-congress). Could pay for that bill by reducing the tax cut bill by 0.5%, but the Koch brothers need their tax break. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/17 "2018-02-04T13:46:18Z")
From the OP’s link: > [@](#): > > “We’re addicted to debt,” says Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. He blames both parties for the situation. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on. Clinton balanced the budget four years in a row at the end of his Presidency. (Those are the only times since 1969 that the Federal budget was balanced, and even 1969 was a one-off. I’m not sure how far back you’d have to go to find a time when the budget was balanced in back-to-back years.) Bush the Dumber immediately rammed a $1 trillion tax cut through Congress in 2001, and followed it up with a $350B tax cut in 2003. Neither of these was paid for in any meaningful way. (There were some cuts to programs during the Bush Administration as a fig leaf to pretend to be paying for the tax cuts. The cuts were big on the scale of the programs cut, but tiny relative to the tax cut.) And of course George and Dick’s Excellent Iraq Adventure, with a tab running in the trillions, didn’t need to be paid for either. Obama’s signature program, the ACA, was 100% paid for by a combination of tax increases, fees, and cuts to other programs. Trump’s signature program to date, the $1.5 trillion tax cut? Not paid for in the least. Both parties, my freakin’ ass. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/18 "2018-02-04T13:51:02Z")
It isn’t clear to me that the estimates of the $1 trillion debt include the increase in defens spending, which may be close to $90 billion this year, or the forthcoming infrastructure proposal, which is probably another $20 billion or so (if it is acted on this year). ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/19 "2018-02-04T14:14:27Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > And yet countless millions of people will say “I know, I have some problems with the Republican party, but I’m a fiscal conservative so I have to vote for them” and _this always goes unchecked_. No one ever challenges this premise. Somehow Republicans have grabbed the “fiscally responsible” mantra, and no one, not even their political opponents, will point out that it’s the opposite of the truth. > > I have no idea why no one ever challenges this because it’s trivial to prove that Republicans are the fiscally irresponsible party. I didn’t understand this apparently obvious contradiction either, until some years ago a conservative friend of mine went a little further in explaining his thinking. He actually said it’s okay if Republicans increase the deficit because it will eventually get to the point where there’s some sort of national debt emergency that forces us to choose between default or keeping our entitlement programs. Naturally, we will have no choice but to eliminate entitlements. But we can’t eliminate the military, law enforcement, and other essential operations. So basically, Republicans will increase spending on shit they like, even if it means jacking up the deficit in the short term, because in the long game, they can use it to eliminate all social spending and balance the budget on their own terms. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137/20 "2018-02-04T14:26:45Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > 1 trillion USD. 84% increase. HUUGGE! MAGA. > > Trump probably considers increased Fed debt as he considered the corporate debt of a property developer i.e. a means to increase leverage on his bankers. And he thinks nothing of screwing over his creditors. I’m sure he thinks America can simply offer to pay back it’s debts with just 10 cents on the dollar. Trump: 'Fuck ‘em! What are they gonna do, declare war on our sacred military with the most beautiful bigly nuclear weapons?!?’ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-government-will-borrow-almost-1-trillion-this-year/808137.md?page=2)