Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

This might be a dumb question. I'm not an economics or finance major. But if we're only spending 7 or 8 percent on interest on the debt, why is it so damn hard to get that under control? Can't we reallocate some funds, up that number to, say, 10 percent, and start getting a handle on this thing?
I'm sure it's not that simple, though.

 

I'm not an economist either, but keep in mind that "7 percent" equals roughly $250 billion, every year.

And that's just on interest.

I'm guessing it also has to do with the amount of debt held by our own Treasury, but I have no idea how that works.

 

Right, so you shuffle some money around and make it $350 billion toward interest and debt repayment. I remember back toward the end of his presidency a big deal was made of Bill Clinton buying back some debt. It wasn't a lot in terms of the total figure, maybe $30 billion or so, but it was a good thing to see them doing it.

 

1. Props to Abbott for looking that up.
2. All elements of federal spending remain popular by themselves if unpopular in the abstract.
3, For the last few years, the government has been essentially borrowing money almost for free due to the low interest rates Ragu hates so much.
4. When I was a cub, well, late 20s, reporter at the old Boston Phoenix, our state house reporter Richard Gaines said something I'll never forget. "What people don't understand," he said, "is that the fat in any budget is the hardest part to get rid of because the fat is there for a reason. The other stuff is just accounting numbers."

 

1) The debt isn't that bad of a thing, so why would you want to?

2) Political will. What are you going to touch? Military spending? Old people benefits?

 

Back-of-the-napkin math tells me adding $100 billion in debt payment, without politically unpalatable cuts to defense or old people stuff, could take close to 20 percent of the everything-else funding, which doesn't seem much more palatable.

 

You don't cut $100 billion just from defense, though, or $100 billion from old people stuff. Take $10 billion from one area, $10 billion from another, a few billion more here and there -- which usually just means their budgets don't increase, they stay the same.
I know the simple answer is "politics," that nobody wants to see their kingdom shrink and will raise holy hell about one side or the other wanting to kill grandma. Another simple answer is that the money set aside for debt reduction would probably be reallocated or looted before it got anywhere near that purpose. Still seems, based on that chart, it should be an easier fix than it is.

 

Somewhere between the Ruy Lopez and the Sicilian Defense, definitely not the Stonewall Attack.

 

Can't buy more votes with less money.

 

I think recent history has shown us that, in order to have any meaningful spending cuts anywhere, people are going to have to be forced into it. They won't cut anything if they don't have to.

That's why "politics" is everything.

 

Who in Congress advocates across the board cuts for everything? Even Tea Party-types want some increases.