How come we don't hear how horrific the U.S debt is lately?

Short answer: Republicans are hypocrites and liars.

Long answer: The debt was used as a political weapon against Obama. However, once the R party won the house and senate, all their previous anti-Obama and anti-Democratic Party objections were conveniently forgotten, because they are now in power.

And to that end they passed that asinine tax cut that will increase the national debt by 1.2 trillion dollars.

It was, and is, all about politics for the republican party. It never was about the debt.

And yet Obama, as with Clinton before him, reduced the budget deficit. Trump, like Bush before him, increased the budget deficit. Hell, Bush inherited the largest budget surplus this country has ever seen and turned it into the largest deficit this country has yet seen. Trump’s budget is also set to result in staggering deficits.

OMG

How can you guys ever get a handle on that??

What? Move on, nothing to see here. The Dems are coming to take your bazookas and anti tank guns! Billary! Obummer! Go watch Dancing With the Stars, Trump has the tweets, uh we mean the situation well in hand! Be sure to watch Fox News at six. Authorized Party news affiliate!

The short answer is: I don’t know. We ought to be talking about it. We talked about it when Obama was in office because he doubled what was an already record debt. Spending was out of control and we were seeing nothing for it. But that doesn’t mean that since we now have a new president from the opposing party we shouldn’t be focused on it. Our debt is staggering. Our elected leaders have shown no fiscal responsibility for decades. We deserve more than out of control debt.

I agree with ya on that at least^^^.

Debt increases under Obama were used to fund recovery programs from the Bush financial crisis and keep people working and housed, i.e, “the little guy”.

Debt increases from the Trump Administration are to fund tax cuts for Corporations and the wealthy, i.e., “the big guys”.

The GOP isn’t opposed to deficits, they are opposed to deficits that don’t pay the right people.

Now that totally sounds the Rep/con way,Thanks @zenvelo .

Government debt is just private sector savings. It’s financial assets held by the private sector: by pension funds, by medical funds, by social security funds, by investors and other central banks. It’s essentially a savings account at the Fed.

Government debt has almost never gone down in absolute numbers. It has risen linearly practically ever year for as long as it has been recorded—that’s partly why the debt clock is scaremongering nonsense.

For a government to tax more than it spends and to run a budget surplus, it needs a large enough tax base—that tax base can be expanded by being a net exporter (new money coming from the foreign sector), or by increased private debt through bank credit. The only other source of new money is from government spending itself, which precedes taxation.

Deficits are overwhelmingly the norm, and practically required.

Which leads me to Clinton’s acclaimed surplus. Because Clinton’s surplus wasn’t fuelled by increasing exports, but by huge rises in private sector borrowing—and it is that borrowing (and policies encouraging risky investments) which was the pregenitor to the 2008 crash.

What should be realised is that economic policies do not have immediate effects. Many things can take years to permeate. And that’s problematic, because most voters reason in quite simple post hoc ways, ascribing observed effects to immediate or recently preceding events—like Trumpets attributing a supposed economic “boom” to Trump, when he’s barely done anything yet.

Add in some partisan thinking and motivated reasoning, and people will argue for their favoured President as being responsible for some positively connoted economic indicator (budget surplus, low inflation, a bull market), while blaming one they don’t like for some supposed negative economic indicator (falling exports, bear market, unemployment, etc).

In reality, they usually don’t know what they’re doing, and aren’t really responsible for much of what happens in their immediate tenure.

Ah. The Trump tax rape of America. 83% of that money is going to the most wealthy. I don’t have the article in front of me, but I think it was 83% to the top 1%...

Trump campaigned on reducing military spending. Just signed a record high budget…

If he gets permission to build his retarded wall, that will add billions more.

Sure seems like America is starting to be great again.

@seawulf575 . Do you hear anything about it in conservative circles? Is there a plan?

We should be! Where the hell is the Tea Party now? The original founders swear they weren’t originally interested in social issues like gay marriage and gays in the military, just the debt. Then the Republican Party took it over, because it became anti-Obama. Maybe some Democrat should bring out that Tea Party against fiscal irresponsibility.

Right now, the republicans believe as the economy revs up it will get rid of the debt. Well, honestly right now the republican “base” mainly cares about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, unemployment being down, immigrants being deterred, and supposed tax cuts that have happened.

I can’t believe I forgot to mention the Suprene Court.

Remember to a portion of the very religious part of the base Trump is bringing on the
prophesy and/or making God happy.

I’ve heard that even the most wildly optimistic estimates of economic growth will still have the country in terrible shape in the next 10 years… Trump is playing with house money, and going all in…

^^They don’t care. The people who love him either don’t care about it right now, or believe the debt will disappear.

Sadly correct…

I will give @seawulf575 some credit he is the only conservative on this question that came forward and said hell yeah we should be concerned about the debt still.

When Obama was in they all kept screaming his drunkin sailor type spending is going to put us all in the poor house, now the the orange hair one is in and it’s all out spending, as long as what @MrGrimm888 said it goes to the right people.
Now this so called walk away movement people are leaving the demo/libs to come to this?
Because they felt lied to?????
Oh yeah that’s right flock to Mr, Trump he won’t lie to you or let you down, are people really that fucking stupid???

The problem with questions like this is that we always ignore the real issue: Congress. Congress is the group that makes the budget. The President approves or disapproves the proposed budget. As such, we say it is the president’s budget. It may also be that the president has “suggestions” for the budget, but Congress has the final draft of what will be in the budget. If the president vetos the budget, the congress has to go back and rethink it. The president has culpability as being the head on the horse, but I believe we let Congress off way too easy. Now, that being said….President Trump’s $4.4T budget for 2019 is way over the top. I believe we need to step back, revisit EVERYTHING we spend money on and eliminate duplication and waste/fraud/abuse in our budget. Our budget is so large and complex that those making the budget and those approving the budget cannot tell you what is in the budget since they have never read the whole thing.

@SQUEEKY2 the walk away movement is interesting. I haven’t seen that those espousing it are actually saying they want to walk to the Republicans. What they are saying is that the Dems are whacked. Maybe they are going to be independents? Maybe they want to support “none of the above”. I don’t know. But I haven’t seen anyone actually saying they are running to President Trump.

To be fair. Our nuclear arsenal was in dire need of upgrading and maintenance. So. Hopefully, that was a big part of why Trump signed off on a record military budget. However, I was hoping the massive required funds to take care of our nukes, would have come from other places in the military budget. Not just tacked on…

There’s SO much spending on military. All I see, is a lot of wasted money…

@MrGrimm888 there was a lot that needed to be spent on military. Our fleet of ships has been shrinking due to age, the nuclear arsenal as you mentioned, most of the equipment was in need of upgrade, and our soldiers hadn’t seen a pay raise in years (thank you Mr. Obama). Also in that budget is the Veteran’s Administration. Socialized medicine costs money. Now, that being said…it took years to decimate our military, we cannot renovate it over night and shouldn’t try.

We realistically shouldn’t be spending that much on military. Nobody should. But yes, there were some needs. When you have a huge military, you have high maintenance costs, and needs for upgrades, as technologies become available /obsolete.

I don’t consider out military “decimated.” That’s crazy. Come on…

Well, military spending has been going down as costs go up. Ships and planes were retired without replacements, and active duty military has dropped about 10% in the past 8 years. Yep, I’d call that decimated.

Did the Atlantic, or Pacific Oceans, shrink?

No?

Then we’re still good…As military goes…

Although Trump is trying to make enemies of our closest neighbors, and allies…