Why do American "liberals" care so much about the national debt?

[Mechaman]

This is something that I have never been able to figure out, especially considering that the whole ideology of New Dealism and it's offshoots are all about bringing society towards a more egalitarian state via a large and generous government with strong social safety nets.  With that said, doesn't the idea of "deficit reduction plans" by their nature imply means that go against the so-called "liberal" vision?  And shouldn't the case of higher taxation on the upper classes be solely based on the idea of "social justice" and not based on "well, we need more revenues"?

Granted, an argument could be made that $16 Trillion in Debt is a bit excessive and could've been easily avoided if necessary cuts (ie, the bloated military budgets of the past few decades) were made.

[Antonio the Sixth]

You seriously misunderstand Keynesianism if you actually think it claims that debt is awesome. The whole idea is that government should go into debt during bad economic times in order to keep the economy going. Once the country is back in expansion, raised revenue and diminished welfare spending (not through welfare cuts, simply because less people need it) allow to balance the budget again.

...well, unless you waste trillions in useless wars and tax cuts for the rich, of course.

[Mechaman]

You seriously misunderstand Keynesianism if you actually think it claims that debt is awesome. The whole idea is that government should go into debt during bad economic times in order to keep the economy going. Once the country is back in expansion, raised revenue and diminished welfare spending (not through welfare cuts, simply because less people need it) allow to balance the budget again.

...well, unless you waste trillions in useless wars and tax cuts for the rich, of course.

Yes, but that's Keynesianism, which I would argue isn't what I see an actual ideal liberal society working out as.  By definition, you need large amounts of social welfare spending to maintain the system.  Also, "balanced budgets"?  Are you aware that not only is "balancing the budget" is rare, but that in America it usually has happened under austerity regimes?  Hell, Andrew Jackson is the only President who ever saw a period where the US had NO debt.

And, given the nature of Government (I think you would agree that the saying "operate Government like a business" is ridiculous), what exactly is so ominous about so-called "debt"?  And why are liberals suddenly as beholden to playing the debt lobby as conservatives are?  A large social liberal state shouldn't expect to "balance" budgets by definition, especially if it has services like Nationalized Healthcare, a robust and up to date public transportation system between urban areas, and a well funded education system.  Sure, the same state shouldn't expect to blow away trillions to feed starving corporations and their war industry boy toys, but surely a little debt should be a sign that the Government is spending it's money on necessary public services?

[anvi]

I don't know if the term "liberal" applies to me, though I do definitely support government ensuring broad-based health care, making large investments in education, infrastructure and other priorities, and I surely support scaled-back military spending.  But part of the problem of funding our health care and retirement priorities is demographics.  When Social Security was established, there were more than 40 workers per retiree and now there are between 2-3.  With Medicare, because it covers so much of the insurance burden for the elderly, and because doctors fight back against lower Medicare reimbursement rates by finding ways to rip it off through unnecessary procedures and medicines, people end up taking three times more out of it in costs than they pay into it during their work years.  We're also entering the retirement years of the massive boomer generation and we've got meagre to no mechanisms for controlling health care cost inflation.  We can't stay on that trend-line of spending without hauling in more tax revenues, and that's where things get tough because it seems to me that collecting sufficient revenues even to fund what we've got, never mind expanding it, which we should do, will require taxing everybody, and not just the wealthy, more.  But that's a delicate problem too, because broad-based tax increases eat into demand, and less demand slows economic growth, and that hurts things too.  The problem with debt is that, if you've got too much of it, the people buying your bonds and funding the debt start to get antsy about your ability to pay it back over time, and eventually they'll demand higher interest rates, and rising interest rates have economy-wide consequences.  If the debt becomes really massive, of course, people won't lend you money anymore.  So, the reason that "liberals" have to care about this stuff, it seems to me, is that we've got real financing problems for our spending commitments staring us starkly in the face, and those challenges are going to require smart, and yes even quite difficult, choices we wouldn't otherwise like to make in order to rectify our situation.  And there are lots of people in the society who are going to fight against those difficult choices with all their political might.  

[DC Al Fine]

Well for one the money required to service the debt could be used for something else like health care.

[minionofmidas]

Well for one the money required to service the debt could be used for something else like health care.

In the end, government carrying debts forward means taxing the poor to pay dividends to the rich.

[anvi]

Seriously, I have to learn the art of the short post.

[DC Al Fine]

Seriously, I have to learn the art of the short post.

I like your long posts. I just want the odd paragraph break now and then.

[Mechaman]

Seriously, I have to learn the art of the short post.

As a fellow long post man, I see nothing wrong with your posts .

[anvi]

Thanks guys, and D.C, good tip and I'll follow it. 

[All Along The Watchtower]

American "social liberalism"  has been dead since the 1970s.

[Redalgo]

Americans in general have gotten quite good at spending money they do not already have. We get tax cuts and burgeoning defense budgets from Republicans who are not in a position to cut enough spending in other areas to make up the difference and it seems like Democrats haven't had the raw courage to raise income taxes on everyone or gut military spending in recent years. The mindset of being comfortable with consuming goods and services now, and paying much later - regardless of whether it is the state or an individual - is disturbing to me.

And yes... social programs are expensive. But no matter what your ideology is, your agenda probably won't be getting all that far if the government is up to its neck in red ink. I'd rather bite the bullet by accepting some austerity now, and then later on funding social programs in proportion to how much revenue is being generated with taxes, than to shortsightedly fund the programs in full at the cost of passing on the bill to our children. We ought to be averse to deficit spending. I feel it is a desperate measure that ought to be reserved for desperate times.

[Antonio the Sixth]

You seriously misunderstand Keynesianism if you actually think it claims that debt is awesome. The whole idea is that government should go into debt during bad economic times in order to keep the economy going. Once the country is back in expansion, raised revenue and diminished welfare spending (not through welfare cuts, simply because less people need it) allow to balance the budget again.

...well, unless you waste trillions in useless wars and tax cuts for the rich, of course.

Yes, but that's Keynesianism, which I would argue isn't what I see an actual ideal liberal society working out as.  By definition, you need large amounts of social welfare spending to maintain the system.  Also, "balanced budgets"?  Are you aware that not only is "balancing the budget" is rare, but that in America it usually has happened under austerity regimes?  Hell, Andrew Jackson is the only President who ever saw a period where the US had NO debt.

And, given the nature of Government (I think you would agree that the saying "operate Government like a business" is ridiculous), what exactly is so ominous about so-called "debt"?  And why are liberals suddenly as beholden to playing the debt lobby as conservatives are?  A large social liberal state shouldn't expect to "balance" budgets by definition, especially if it has services like Nationalized Healthcare, a robust and up to date public transportation system between urban areas, and a well funded education system.  Sure, the same state shouldn't expect to blow away trillions to feed starving corporations and their war industry boy toys, but surely a little debt should be a sign that the Government is spending it's money on necessary public services?

Deficit or surplus is irrelevant to the level of social redistribution you have in a society. For every dollar spent in social programs, you can have one raised through a progressive tax system.

I think you can easily run a correlation between the level of redistribution and the debt among countries: there will be no relationship.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Obviously we don't support out of control debt. We're not idiots.

[The Mikado]

The larger the debt gets, the more of the budget goes to paying interest payments on the debt, the less is left for everything else.

[© tweed]

because finance capital hates inflation and finance capital finances the Democratic party.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I care about the structural deficit, not the national debt. I also am not really an American "liberal" so my opinion isn't very relevant to this thread's interests. I suppose I could answer with a Tweed-esque post with the major difference that I view a large percentage of Democrats as not caring particularly much about the deficit outside of the fact that it constrains future budgets and makes counter-cyclical spending during recessions appear more risky. Then there are the Chuck Schumers of the world...

[angus]

I don't know if the term "liberal" applies to me, though I do definitely support government ensuring broad-based health care, making large investments in education, infrastructure and other priorities, and I surely support scaled-back military spending.  But part of the problem of funding our health care and retirement priorities is demographics.  When Social Security was established, there were more than 40 workers per retiree and now there are between 2-3.  With Medicare, because it covers so much of the insurance burden for the elderly, and because doctors fight back against lower Medicare reimbursement rates by finding ways to rip it off through unnecessary procedures and medicines, people end up taking three times more out of it in costs than they pay into it during their work years.  We're also entering the retirement years of the massive boomer generation and we've got meagre to no mechanisms for controlling health care cost inflation.  We can't stay on that trend-line of spending without hauling in more tax revenues, and that's where things get tough because it seems to me that collecting sufficient revenues even to fund what we've got, never mind expanding it, which we should do, will require taxing everybody, and not just the wealthy, more.  But that's a delicate problem too, because broad-based tax increases eat into demand, and less demand slows economic growth, and that hurts things too.  The problem with debt is that, if you've got too much of it, the people buying your bonds and funding the debt start to get antsy about your ability to pay it back over time, and eventually they'll demand higher interest rates, and rising interest rates have economy-wide consequences.  If the debt becomes really massive, of course, people won't lend you money anymore.  So, the reason that "liberals" have to care about this stuff, it seems to me, is that we've got real financing problems for our spending commitments staring us starkly in the face, and those challenges are going to require smart, and yes even quite difficult, choices we wouldn't otherwise like to make in order to rectify our situation.  And there are lots of people in the society who are going to fight against those difficult choices with all their political might.  

Well said. 

[Link]

With Medicare, because it covers so much of the insurance burden for the elderly, and because doctors fight back against lower Medicare reimbursement rates by finding ways to rip it off through unnecessary procedures and medicines, people end up taking three times more out of it in costs than they pay into it during their work years.

[citation needed]

You obviously don't know any doctors.  Reimbursement for physicians has plummeted in real terms from what they were getting paid 30 years ago.  The difference is they are ramming through an ungodly number of patients through the system just to make less money.  I'm not necessarily saying payment levels from 30 years ago were correct or sustainable but doctors' pay has been cut dramatically and their expenses have gone up exponentially.  I find it interesting that you were able to realize that demographic shifts affect SS payments but you ignored those same demographics when talking about health care.  Why?

63% of adults were overweight or obese in 2009.

13.3% of the population is 65 or older.

Just think about those two facts alone.  You think cutting doctor pay which has already been slashed is going to solve the problem?

Look at this...



Also in any statistical analysis you can cherrypick the outliers.  Are there doctors that abuse the system?  Sure.  Are there legitimate doctors that are grossly overpaid?  Sure.  But doctors are not a homogenous group.  Americans have voted and said plastic surgeons are more important than pediatricians.  You routinely find people that will quibble over a copay for their child's pediatrician visit but have no problem saving up for years for a boob job.

[angus]

Link, have you ever seen a billboard so big that you can't even see it all in the limited field of your windshield?  Such billboards defeat their own purposes.  You can't tell what they're advertising.  All they do is block out the scenery. 

[Link]

Link, have you ever seen a billboard so big that you can't even see it all in the limited field of your windshield?  Such billboards defeat their own purposes.  You can't tell what they're advertising.  All they do is block out the scenery. 

Sorry that was the smallest one I could find in a hurry.  It is easily viewable on a medium resolution computer monitor.  I don't visit this forum on smart phone's etc so I'm not sure how stuff looks on those.  I'll look for another one.

[General White]

Liberals are for high government spending with large social programs and aid to the poor. It can be good and bad.