Very scary news indeed. The United States has now hit its debt ceiling. This means that congress now has a matter of days or weeks to vote to extend the debt ceiling, or the government will default on its debts and possibly go bankrupt.

For nearly a century, extending the debt ceiling was unanimously approved. Its something that's needed to protect the name and credit of the country. It's also needed to pay government employees. Starting today, government will be operated through cuts elsewhere and internal loans.

This time, however, House Republicans (who have a controlling vote now) have zero interest in expanding the debt ceiling. They believe the government is spending too much money, and that a lesson is needed to show its consequences. This may be a plan to blame a catestrophic economic event on Democratic leadership, or an attempt to dissolve governance from the inside.

They are making several concessions to getting their votes, including cuts to education and environmental spending.

What do you think? Will the US default on its debt? Will some terrible compromise stop the country from total disaster?

alexanyways : It's only a matter of time before this flimsy fiat system we have will collapse. Our current sort of economy we've had for the last 50 or so years can only exist if we keep on taking new debt that can never be paid back. We either kick the can down the road by continuing with this madness, or deal with it now.

I am not an economist. I am a meteorologist. However being a meteorologist I am good with numbers. I am also knowledgeable about history. The USA has not learned from history and we are setting ourselves up for a huge crash economically. I do not know when this crash will happen it might be soon or a few years.

Here is a little history lesson.

The 1910's and 1920's the Economy was booming. In fact the 20's was known as the booming 20's. However, Presidents Taft, Wilson, Harding, Cooliage, and to some extend Hoover. Kept borrowing and spending money. Sure things were good but the debt went so high. Then everything crashed. Setting up the Great Depression which lasted from 1929-1937. Stocks tanked, banks defaulted, people lost their jobs. To make matters worse you had the dust bowl which hurt crop production which drove prices up. This also hurt the economy. Then WWI had caused a lot of global debt. WWI hurt Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the USSR's economy. These were the global players at that time. The bad economy also helped fuel H!tler's raise to power in Germany.

Now, things have been put into place that a great depression like that could happen but probably will not be that bad. On the other hand, We saw how bad things can get in the great recessions in the 1970's and 2008-2011. In the 1970's you had a recession and energy crisis. In the 2008-2011 you had high unemployment for our standards, housing market crashes, jobs leaving, people losing their jobs.

So what does this have to do with the current state.

Well just like the Great Depression the previous presidents were big spenders. Since 2000 US Presidents have spent big.

From 1983-2000 the US had 17 years of growth. The National Debt stayed between 1-2 trillion. George W Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden spent trillions of dollars. The US debt ceiling has had to be increased every year since 2000 due to the big spending.

Since 2000 the US National Debt has been increased by $30 Trillion. We are now close to $32 Trillion. Just like the late 1920's eventually a crash is going to happen and when it does its going to be bad.

This is just my opinion how do we fix this?

First we need to stop passing wasteful spending. A lot of times infastructure bills are passed. But only a small percentage goes to infastructure. A lot of it goes to other things that is sometimes silly.

We need to make budge cuts. One thing we can cut is foreign aid. We give Billions and Billions to countries. Some of these countries hate us which makes no sense.

Yes while we need a strong military to defend ourselves. The military budget often has a surplus because it is rarely touched. Since we are not at war why not trim it back some.

Finally, we need to get serious about balancing the budget. Republicans and Democrats rather argue and blast each other than solve problems. If the Republicans come up with a good idea the democrats will block it or tank it just to stick it to the republicans. The Republicans do the same even if its a good idea and a win win for everybody.

Until these things happen we have a big mess. The US will probably do what it has done since 2000 Raise the debt ceiling adding more to the debut. Spend more then the following year rinse and repeat.

I simply don’t see any way that the US doesn’t extend this until June and at that time doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, as they’ve done many times.

It’s in everyone’s best interest to raise the ceiling, except these dumb far right republicans want something to run on in 2024. Collapse the economy, blame Biden, and anyone can win with their degenerate voter base.

The federal government debt isn’t “real”, they always raise it and always will. No country is going to call on our debt as they know without the US economy, there is no world economy.

I am an economist and I know that anything short of continuing the status quo with the debt ceiling will be a huge mistake.