US debt has hit $40tn - Will that be a wake-up call?

drcongo

Paging Ian Betteridge.

swozey

If we had a government that educated people, potentially, but we don't, so it wont

matheusmoreira

No. Will only change if debt prevents reelection.

dvduval

Party with power spends money. Party not in power complains too much money is being spent. Broken system. Those high interest rates ought to teach them pretty soon.

CamelCaseName

"There’s nothing magic about the $40 trillion number, and we can grow our way out of that" - Bessent He also claims the number is temporary because of tariff refunds, and that they will reduce the debt with more tariffs.

dzonga

the rate of growth is the worrying trend. then that the debt has been accelerating with either party in power - means this is a problem that won't be solved politically by the current actors i.e both parties.

jghn

My sources say no

Alien1Being

The financial illiteracy of Warsh, Bessent and Trump is the goddess's gift to China .

r721

Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49366743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49378560

Jeremy1026

I put together a quick flow chart to determine if we need to worry about the national debt. Is a democrat in office? | | | | Yes No | | | | Spending must________No big stop immediately_______deal

ramraj07

Can someone speculate on how this will actually play out in the coming decades?

timkpaine

It will certainly be the "number one" issue, just as soon as democrats take control of the legislative or executive branch of government.

ck2

at least half of that $40 trillion is from the nationwide militarization of the United States post 9/11 * https://ips-dc.org/report-state-of-insecurity-cost-militariz... that level of military spending is never going down and will only increase by design something the average consumer has absolutely no control over and no ability to solve we just wanted healthcare and homes, instead we got endless wars and bombing civilians with tomahawks

gsky

Not gonna happen until dollar looses reserved currency status

slicktux

I recall back in 2016 when the debt was $19 trillion dollars. Here we are 10 years later at double that. “we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt… place economy among the first and most important republican virtues” -Thomas Jefferson

david927

The news we read is optimized for edge-event cases. Here it's about a particular number being hit. What's more interesting is the long, overarching news stories that span decades, e.g. BRICS, and the demise of the petro-dollar

expedition32

I read a newspaper article about this. Apparently according to Dutch economists the US only has to raise taxes by a few percent and the deficit is fixed. Not that they'll ever do that ofcourse.