Do liberals care about the debt and deficit?

I recently had a conversation with a local liberal here that has assured me that liberals are not concerned with the debt and the deficit. ( Which is a good way to describe the Democrat party right now )

It was sort of off topic in that thread so I figured it was a worthy topic of conversation of its own.

I told him that the problem is, is that some liberals believe that and think that the government can just print fiat currency until the cows come home and that there won't be any consequences eventually, of such a policy.

Please discuss. Do you think that the debt and deficit matter at all?

I say you can't just pretend like it's Monopoly money without consequences forever. One day the piper will show up to take his due.

 

It quite literally depends on who is in power. Larry Kudlow, the infamous conservative economist, when he was working for the Trump Administration, is famously stating, "Deficits don't matter." This was echoed by one Ronald Reagan who said that very same thing in the 1980s amid the criticism back then. Debt and the deficit have been used by both parties against the other party for political reasons. And then we have personal debt, which is now at an all-time high.

 

"the piper" takes his cut from the debt as interest on the treasury bonds held by the rich, corporations, and foreign governments. as long as this remains a safe and profitable venture the debt will NEVER be paid no matter who we vote for.

dems are, of course, soft on the poor, sick and elderly and the repubs are more interested in their version of "two santa claus."

would i run my household like that? of course not.but i do not collect taxes nor print my own sovereign currency.

reference : 2001 hearings on the tax cut. listen very carefully to what very conservative greenspan is saying.

 

I'm not talking about some corrupt person at the head of some government agency of entity.

I'm talking about the common conservative and liberal here at ground level in the world around us.

 

A lot of conservatives listen to someone named Larry Kudlow, Trump, and others. And they represent the people who elected them, so to speak. But it goes against your argument about who really cares about debt and deficits. We have had debts and deficits long before this country was founded and it was not a major issue until the 1980s when our debt pretty much exploded. We tried, even GHWBush tried and was chastised for, gasp, raising revenue, to solve the deficit issue and by cutting spending where it needed to be cut. The problem that "you guys have" is not the debt or deficit, it is the actual programs. You want nothing to do with those programs at all for pure political reasons, even though they do not contribute much to the debt and deficit. We do know the three programs that do: SS, Medicare, and DoD spending in and of itself. And none of them are going to be cut or reformed anytime soon, not even if DeSantis or Trump is in the WH.

 

Debt and deficits mean squat to people who think they're owed a living because of their social status what ever it may be. They believe big government is the key to living large without having to have an actual job.

 

So to speak...... I'm not talking about me or anyone in particular but the average voter.

 

None of that is actually related to what I'm talking about but thank you for the fancy Cherry picked graphs of your choosing.

 

I get it, you want to know how to stop funding 75%+ of the Gov't, for "some reason"

Grover Norquist is a well-known proponent of the strategy and has famously said, "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

 

Someone in this thread only wants to discuss a very partisan, and shallow version of this discussion. Who might that be?

If anyone is really serious about this topic they will endorse a verson of the 'Grand Bargain' in which EVERYTHING IS ON THE TABLE. That includes increased taxes, reduced military spending and reduced entitlement spending.

If you start making excuses not to include all three legs of this fiscal stool in this effort, Your views should be dismissed as partisan hackery.

 

Yes, progressives think that the deficit does not matter. It’s called “Modern Monetary Theory.” You can run up the debt as much as the government needs to do to fund their programs by creating money. All the historical examples of inflation that was caused by irresponsible increases in the money supply are irrelevant. Progressives have told us they can rewrite history and ignore all the macro economic concepts we learned in school. Everything we know is wrong because progressives say so.

 

You ?

 

It doesn't matter what someone once said especially, when that someone doesn't exist and you're trying to pretend like they said what you're saying.

 

You would running the government would be similar to running a household or business when it comes to finances. The difference is when the government overspends they can, with a snap of a finger, print money, borrow more or raise taxes.

 

So am I.

 

But government is not run as a household or a business. And even they would want more revenue either by obtaining a second job or the business creating new avenues to get more revenue in new markets. Since taxation in government is new revenue to a household or business, what do you think?

 

And if they do too much of that we have inflation and one day we're going to suffer the end results of doing it for so long.

 

How many posts do I have in this thread we can use as evidence for such a proposition, as opposed to say... You! Who decided to differenciate first based on 'political ideology'? That was in the OP.

If the title is 'Do liberals care...', We know we are in for a partisan attack job.

 

You will have to pardon me because one of your liberal comrades made the comment and I thought it was worth more discussion.

 

Why did you not want to discuss whether people care about the debt and deficit?

 

Liberals care, but don't buy into the idea that a democrat president adding more than $1 to the debt will push us over the fiscal cliff.

Most liberals have become numb since republicans were declaring the US would go belly up under the spending Obama did.

It wasn't an issue under Trump, and 2 years later it's one of the biggest issues now? C'mon.

 

Well he did assure me that liberals don't care about the debt or the deficit and he has elevated himself to the position of speaking for all liberals before so I figured this time shouldn't be any different.

Yes I know there is some vibes of that Borg thing going on.

 

One of the greatest lies in American Politics is that the conservatives are conservative spenders.

The President with the largest increase in debt spending? Ronald Reagan. 179% increase.

The next highest? Bush II. 101% increase.

Barack Obama? 81% increase.

Bill Clinton? 39% increase.

Conservatives and liberals spend money like crazy - they just tend to spend on different programs.
Neither party wants to be the one to slam on the brakes while they're in the White House, cause they know it's going to cause severe
pain to the economy. It's just a game of Musical Chairs at this point - the party in power when the lights go out will become the villains - even
though BOTH have contributed to the power outage.

So, every time I see these kind of threads, I know it's just going to be a circle jerk of conservatives pretending they're the "responsible" people
in the room ... it's pure bull crap. BOTH parties are horrible at balancing a budget.

 

@Endeavor

Would you care to share with us how as a liberal that you do not care about the debt or the deficit?

Do you think it's a government just fires up the printing press anytime it gets ready that it's not going to affect the American dollar?