Is the size of the U.S. national debt a pressing issue?

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

No (normal)

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Of course.

[ElectionsGuy]

Of course.

[TNF]

Yes, because it represents a tremendous transfer of wealth from the working class upward to those who lend us our own money on interest (the Federal Reserve) and to foreign despots and financiers.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The problem is not so much the debt as the ongoing deficit. Ideally we should be running about neutral right now. The economy isn't is such a great shape as to justify running surpluses to save for a rainy day, but neither is it so bad that we ought to be running an annual deficit.

[Comrade Funk]

It is not an urgent issue, but it is still important, though our #1 priority should be the economy and jobs.

[RogueBeaver]

Of course.

[tmthforu94]

Absolutely - if we don't address it now it will only become harder to fix.

[Deus Naturae]

Of course.

[MATTROSE94]

Its probably the most important issue other than jumpstarting the economy.

[bedstuy]

Not nearly to the degree that people think it is.  People tend to analogize the national debt to a household budget which is an insane comparison.

The problem with debt is that it needs to be repaid with future taxes.  But, the way people repay debt has always been through economic growth.  If you suddenly stop spending, you both put your economy in decline and end up being penny-wise-pound-foolish on investments.  If you refuse to keep building for the future, you end up with a shrunken economy that has less income to tax.  If you spend smartly, a large future debt isn't as problematic because there's more income to tax.

Yes, because it represents a tremendous transfer of wealth from the working class upward to those who lend us our own money on interest (the Federal Reserve) and to foreign despots and financiers.

Don't the working class need to have a tremendous amount of wealth for it to be transferred away from them?  Last time I checked, working people in America are poor and live hand to mouth with no assets to speak of.   

[Cassius]

Of course. To say that debt is not an issue is simply foolishness. Now, if the state has the resources to pay off said debt then it's not really a problem. On the other hand, if the only way to pay off debts is to borrow money in order to pay it off then you have a problem.

[Lief 🗽]

Despite the ranting of right-wing loons and The Serious People, folks who actually know about this stuff mostly all say that it isn't an issue, especially when compared with much more pressing issues like growth and employment or climate change.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lawrence-summers-in-shutdown-debate-focus-on-growth-not-deficit/2013/10/13/c944c20c-3428-11e3-be86-6aeaa439845b_story.html

[Redalgo]

It is a pressing issue in that it is inter-generational exploitation. Future generations should not have to pay for the desires of their ancestors, and likewise I feel it is immoral for current generations to borrow against anticipated tax revenue - money to be either skimmed off from the incomes of their children and grandchildren or passed on in turn to their progeny. I reckon it would be better to make do with what we have even if it means settling for a more modest pace of progress on some issues, leaving it to people to decide in the future whether to continue building upon current endeavors.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Not nearly to the degree that people think it is.  People tend to analogize the national debt to a household budget which is an insane comparison.

This is probably the single most important facet of the issue.

YES

[Cassius]

Perhaps in the case of the United States, where there is little doubt that it will be able to pay off its debts, it's a less pressing issue. On the other hand it can be disastrous for countries that find themselves unable to pay off their debts. In these situations, attempting to pay off the debt by 'growing' the economy will not work, because since they are unable to pay off their debts in the first place the country in question will need to borrow even more in order to fund initiatives to create growth. A stage will eventually be reached where creditors simply stop giving loans, and thus the whole edifice comes crashing down, as the country is in the position of having large levels of debt without the means to pay it off. That is (I believe) something like what happened to Greece. Now of course, people might say 'well austerity caused Greece's problems'. Which is to some extent true, due to the inevitable social strife that results from such economic adjustments. But, at the end of the day, the Greeks had no money to 'grow' the economy, and I'm of the opinion that it is unfair to ask the taxpayers of other countries to bail out a country like Greece, which, by and large, brought most of it's problems on itself. Thus, such 'austerity' measures are simple, brutal neccessities.

From my own point of view, a balanced budget and a low level of debt is an ideal that a government should always strive for (though of course, in certain cases such as war and bank bailouts, it is neccessary for the government to go ahead with it's actions balanced budget or no). It's simply a matter of 'safety first' (I don't like it when government's try to live dangerously), as all sorts of problems can arise when a government finds itself unable to pay off it's debts.

[Gass3268]

No, not right now

[Redalgo]

Asking everyone, really, if the debt is not a serious issue what will be done about it in the long term?

The way I see it, during good times people demand low taxes to avoid "stiffing growth" while leaders in power spend a lot of money anticipating revenue to remain high for the foreseeable future. Then during the bad times people demand low taxes to avoid "stiffing recovery" while leaders in power spend a lot of money anticipating it is necessary to cope with increased demand for state assistance and to help jump start the economy again. At no point in this recurring cycle is there apparently a proper time when most people agree tax rates (on most Americans - not just those at income levels different than ones own) should be increased and spending by the state significantly reduced. Sure, a lot of people say they want less spending, but even now I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many specific things most folks want to scale back funding for that have significant weight in contributing to the increasing debt.

What do we do about it in the long run, if we wait until the problem is no longer easy to remedy? Do we print an obscene amount of money? Do we gut social programs (again)? Do we sharply raise taxes? Is there a plan that could realistically get through Congress that won't ensure the bill is paid too much by lower and middle income earners? Our prospects when it comes to having a strong foundation for future development relies on making responsible decisions today.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

Of course.

[Cassius]

Democracy is the enemy of responsible decisions.

Not that I think democracy is by definition a bad thing. There is much that is good and virtuous in it. But, human nature being what it is, there is a tendency, a perfectly understandable one, only to care about one's own interests. Now, since democracy is a system whose main selling point is taking everybody's views into account, this understandably causes the machine of government to overheat somewhat.

[SWE]

No

[H. Ross Peron]

Not in the short term

[Consciously Unconscious]

Of course.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Despite the ranting of right-wing loons and The Serious People, folks who actually know about this stuff mostly all say that it isn't an issue, especially when compared with much more pressing issues like growth and employment or climate change.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lawrence-summers-in-shutdown-debate-focus-on-growth-not-deficit/2013/10/13/c944c20c-3428-11e3-be86-6aeaa439845b_story.html

There is one extremely major flaw in the CBO projections.  They assume that each and every year will be an average year and that no significant changes in taxing and spending will occur.  Becoming complacent about the deficit because of those assumptions is sheer lunacy.  The idea that we won't have another recession in the next few decades that causes the government to stimulate the economy by providing tax cuts, extended safety net programs and/or infrastructure spending is simply not in keeping with experience or with good public policy.

Countercyclical spending works, but has as a political defect that politicians have generally been loath to run the necessary surpluses in good times needed to sustain them in the long term.  The last thing our idiot congresscritters of either party need to hear is we don't need to worry about the deficit in the long term.  Now we don't need a drastic ten-year plan to eliminate the national debt.  Indeed, we don't need to eliminate the debt, tho it would be nice to trim it.  What we do need to do is get our deficit sufficiently under control that we do run some modest surpluses from time to time.  As I said earlier, our economy is doing marginally okay, but could be better so for now a roughly balanced budget, with a slight shading towards minor deficit spending should be our goal.

[Adam Griffin]

No, and I really wish Republicans and conservatives would stop concern trolling on the issue. All we need to do at this point is keep deficits as a % of GDP below that of annual growth and not a single market or lender in the entire world will bat an eye at our debt for as long as that rings true. Besides, the only way you're going to reduce the national debt by any substantive amount is to tax the hell out of millionaires like we did in the 1940s and 1950s. The highest levels of taxation for wealthy people in this country correspond to both the fastest rates of GDP & per capita income growth, as well as the most rapid reductions in our debt. Until they're ready to admit, process and embrace that, they're not serious about reducing the debt (again, not that it even needs to be in nominal terms).