The last time we had a balanced budged was during the Clinton years. Now I was barely out of high school and hardly paid a bit of attention to such matters at the time, but then there was a little event towards the end of 2001 that turned everything upside down. The military and police became supreme concerns and letting The Market™ fix everything was the name of the game under Bush. So much so that we got to experience the 2008 collapse during the Obama years in a major part due to the banks giving loans to people who couldn’t pay them on properties that where massively over valued. We’ve never managed to put things back in order since, in part because the climate got so polarized that ‘my team’ could NEVER support anything in the least that would be supported by THEM.
Throw in a dash of citizens united completely shifting any sense of public input into politics for anyone not a multi millionaire or more and some populist prattling about the good-ol-days and you get what we have now where a big chunk of people who can’t care to think for a moment of the actual policies being proposed beyond which team put it forth and you have a lovely recipe for an open pillaging by those with the power to do so.
Yeah, part of me wants to just shut off the news for the next several years, but unfortunately being prepared requires being aware…
True, but I don’t think anyone expects a balanced US budget at this stage of global economics. IMO a loss of the AAA rating would tank the economy significantly and risk a massive corporate backlash. This will make the government’s stance untenable and cannot simply be solved by issuing unlimited debt.
The last time we had a balanced budged was during the Clinton years. Now I was barely out of high school and hardly paid a bit of attention to such matters at the time, but then there was a little event towards the end of 2001 that turned everything upside down. The military and police became supreme concerns and letting The Market™ fix everything was the name of the game under Bush. So much so that we got to experience the 2008 collapse during the Obama years in a major part due to the banks giving loans to people who couldn’t pay them on properties that where massively over valued. We’ve never managed to put things back in order since, in part because the climate got so polarized that ‘my team’ could NEVER support anything in the least that would be supported by THEM.
Throw in a dash of citizens united completely shifting any sense of public input into politics for anyone not a multi millionaire or more and some populist prattling about the good-ol-days and you get what we have now where a big chunk of people who can’t care to think for a moment of the actual policies being proposed beyond which team put it forth and you have a lovely recipe for an open pillaging by those with the power to do so.
Yeah, part of me wants to just shut off the news for the next several years, but unfortunately being prepared requires being aware…
True, but I don’t think anyone expects a balanced US budget at this stage of global economics. IMO a loss of the AAA rating would tank the economy significantly and risk a massive corporate backlash. This will make the government’s stance untenable and cannot simply be solved by issuing unlimited debt.