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Comment by jorblumesea | Hacker News Reader

The issue is mostly political and not financial or knowledge problems. How you accomplish that is government spending, and there's a certain subsection of the population that has been convinced that government spending is universally bad.

There are vested interests waging a war against the US building infrastructure because its ideologically against the narrative developed.

"Starve the beast" has turned any kind of fiscal spending into a huge political battle. It used to be, funding basic things was just a given. Now it's a fight over every little dollar.

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The factions against this kind of government spending also happen to be the same ones who blow up the debt and deficit on tax cuts for the rich when they're in power, then bang on the table about how it's the most important issue when they're out of power.

In approximately 61 days, conservatives in the US will be in an absolute panic about the financial state of the country.

Yes, it's all a game. The minute they're in power, it's spend spend spend. The minute they're out of power, suddenly the deficit is a huge deal. How many actually care about the deficit is questionable, but it's clearly very low.

The boomercons in my circle have given up on fiscal responsibility and have now just accepted the fact that we're going to default at some point, so there's no point in fretting about it. It'll be interesting to see if the Congress critters follow suit.

The US debt is denominated in a currency that it is the sovereign issuer of.

The US has full ability to pay such debts, at the cost of inflation.

Large deficits would be fine if the spending were for investments with a high ROI, such as infrastructure or nuclear power.

Indeed, going further into debt for an investment with great ROI makes sense. Regardless of the debt level, a good investment is a good investment. And a bad investment is a bad investment.

Alas, most spending of the US federal government isn't an investment of any type.

> The US has full ability to pay such debts, at the cost of inflation.

That point could reasonably be interpreted as rather than taking in a dollar and paying back 50 cents, the US has the power to take in an hour of labour and pay back a half hour. And claim that it fulfilled the terms of the agreement.

That isn't an improvement. It is nothing more than muddying the waters enough it makes it hard to point out that the situation is no different from a default. Which I suppose is why they do it.

There is an amount of stuff in the world at this moment. The US either gives back more stuff than it borrowed, or less. The idea that it can give back less stuff but that is OK because it is a government is a foolish idea. Making it hard to understand who is getting what doesn't magically mean everyone is happy, it just means we only find out who is paying with benefit of hindsight.

> The idea that it can give back less stuff but that is OK because it is a government is a foolish idea.

Anyone can pay back less real value if they have terms where the rate of interest is lower than the real rate of inflation.

Creditors of a government can mitigate the risk of that happening due to the policies of the debtor government by setting repayment terms other than in fiat currency of the debtor.

They often choose not to; heck, in the case of the US, it's happened that they choose to lend despite negative nominal rates, even before inflation.

> Alas, most spending of the US federal government isn't an investment of any type.

Unless you consider being the sovereign issuer of the world's reserve currency, and the military, civil government, legal system, and property rights behind that to be an investment of some type.

The majority of spending goes towards pensions, healthcare, education, etc.

Education could be an investment but per student spending has tripled over 50 years, yet it would be hard to argue that there is a high marginal return on investment from the extra spending.

Same with healthcare. Plenty have noted that the US spends more per capita but has worse outcomes. Seems like there's simultaneously cheaper and more effective approaches out there.

Social security is just a transfer payment, but not sustainably structured.

Capitalists?

Republicans of course.

> tax cuts for the rich

You mean those who actually pay taxes? The top 10% pays 70% of all federal tax.

The most current tax cuts also lowered the brackets in almost all cases, as well as raising the standard deduction. These changes reduced taxes for almost every American.

> In approximately 61 days, conservatives in the US will be in an absolute panic about the financial state of the country.

As opposed to the last 4 years where democrats in the US were in an absolute panic about everything.

The truth is that somehow we are conditioned to believe that only income deserves taxation. We have under-taxed wealth so much that there needs to be some equalization.

It comes in the form of a wealth tax. Instead of sitting on their cash/capital piles they have to do something with it or lose it.

That was a great trick that the wealthy pulled, convincing us to jealously despise well-paid workers.

But they own 95% of the wealth so shouldn't they be paying 95% of the federal taxes?

It's actually roughly 70% for wealth as well, so I guess it's fair eh?

> Deutsche Bank’s Torsten Sløk says that the distribution of household wealth in America has become even more disproportionate over the past decade, with the richest 10% of U.S. households representing 70% of all U.S. wealth in 2018, compared with 60% in 1989, according to a recent study by researchers at the Federal Reserve. [1]

[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2019017pap...

> Now it's a fight over every little dollar.

Unless a bank is in trouble or someone wants to fight a war.

> certain subsection of the population that has been convinced that government spending is universally bad.

unless that spending is on them. That subsection of the population LOVES welfare when they get it and it's called something else. You could just call this something other than welfare.

Please explain the $578 million dollar elementary school in Los Angeles, California in 2010

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-f-kennedy-communit_n_6...

Excess on all sides

It's an outcome of polarization, imo. One side says government spending is evil so don't do any, so the other says government spending is an inherent good unto itself, so damn the costs.

Your link describes it as a "K-12 complex". Maybe you think they should have thrown in preschool and PhDs too for that price, but there's no need to exaggerate.

Google says it's actually six different K-12 schools crammed into one mega-complex.

The article explains why. Perhaps you should read it.

> "Starve the beast" has turned any kind of fiscal spending into a huge political battle.

Strangely though "Defund the police" goes the other way, politically. /ducks

There's no equivalence. The rationale behind each of these two positions is completely unrelated.

> and there's a certain subsection of the population that has been convinced that government spending is universally bad.

Oh of course! It's the Republicans' fault, how predictable. If only we had a Democrat utopia like California at a national level, we'd have nuclear plants everywhere and everything would be perfect.

Californians don't want nuclear plants in California! Wyoming or Utah might be the perfect distance away, and prevailing winds are also ideal...

Considering their abysmal failure in California, yes, we don't want them.

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