# You owe $21 trillion

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-owe-21-trillion/810711>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 17, 2018, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-owe-21-trillion/810711 "2018-03-17T03:12:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 6

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**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2018, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-owe-21-trillion/810711/101 "2018-03-30T18:32:43Z")

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> [@septimus](#):
>
> 😕 If my extrapolations of your position are incorrect, show us where.

Whether they were correct or not, they have nothing to do with anything I said in this thread, and so your comments were a plain old ad hominem attack.

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**Author:** ![WillReadmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@WillReadmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillReadmore)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-owe-21-trillion/810711/102 "2018-03-30T19:00:53Z")

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Septimus, I’m not sure what you mean with your debt stats, as I think the national debt is more than 10X total student loan debt.

Plus, student loan debt is a little tricky in that one can solve that problem by having the government underwrite more of that expense (where it’s unclear how it would be offset) or one could suggest fewer Americans get an education (and thus move our nation even farther away from the international center of competition, which is/will be based in high tech, information, innovation, rather than manufacturing).

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**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:** [March 30, 2018, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-owe-21-trillion/810711/103 "2018-03-30T19:12:52Z")

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Debts and deficits, whether by government, individuals, or sectors, can be a problem for the debtors, as well as society as a whole. I am worried about the federal debt, but student debt is also a big problem … especially for the students! I don’t see easy answers. The U.S. government has passed up relatively easy solutions for some financial problems, e.g. the 2008 mortgage crisis, but I see no easy answers for existing student debt, America’s severe trade deficit, etc.

The federal deficit could be attacked in sensical ways. For starters, raise taxes and cut military spending. But when I see the implied suggestion to attack the deficit by instead reneging on the SocSec promise and cutting taxes further, I do tend to get snarky! 🙂

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