This will be solved by taxes, inflation, war, or a combination of the three, sadly.
In the future, continuing to spend as rates go up would be progressively less wise as the rates increase, but "solving" debt spending is not nearly the crisis some people seem to think it is.
The US is not operating under the same rules as your personal finances.
Another rule to use is that not all spending is treated equally. The country going in to debt to fund projects that boost economic activity (typically measured as GDP) is not the same as the country going in to debt for a different class of projects, for example. Often times we look at national debt but we don't have a great mechanism for evaluating return on that debt.
People keep saying this and it’s not really true. Even MMT really can be translated to personal finances.
Here is the simple explanation:
Households and individuals consume the goods they buy. Some excess goes towards investments.
Governments do not consume. Building a road/bridge/building/dam is an investment to “have the nation make more money”.
Even when government spends money on “dumb things” a F35 while over paying significantly, it’s an investment. Even if this project doesn’t become “something” itself it can still be a huge national investment. 1. The people who worked on it will spend the money they earned. 2. The people got training that was useful. 3. Technology likely progressed in many small ways that aren’t the end product (eg better wind tunnel simulation, or better GPS chips) and even by learning “what not to do next time”. That said, obviously the government should always aim for better investments rather than worse investments.
Imagine a household that kept taking debt to buy houses and renting those out. As long as the ratio of TotalRent:TotalDebt was healthy at N-1 houses, then the same TotalRent:TotalDebt ratio for N houses continues to be healthy.
No money ever spent on consumption, only on investment. Therefore NationalGDP:NationalDebt is the ratio to watch for. That is how you understand national finances and relate it back to your experience.
Additionally, the household could only have 5 houses in the same neighborhood. So a financial shock could hit it badly. The nation has X TT of investments that are all distributed across city centers, rural areas, and even digital. It’s not just diversified, it is the whole pie.
A large enough shock to cause a destabilization of the NationalGDP:NationalDebt for a country as large as the USA is roughly enumerated as: an extinction event (or close enough), a second US civil war, or a declaration of active war against the USA on US soil. It could also happen because of terribly large scale corruption but it’s unlikely at the scale of the USA.
Even if it was, your average person takes on debt equal to maybe 400%-500% their “GDP” when they obtain a mortgage.
I don't want to work for the government 4 months/year if we can just rack up infinite debt and be fine.
The people with enough economics/finance education to understand the mechanic are typically on the side where they benefit (enough income to invest in assets that appreciate from our debt & monetary policies). The people who suffer often don't have the time to study this stuff in depth, and when they do they often find socialist/communist information much more attractive and "truthful" emotionally. Unfortunately that content usually confers a really bad understanding of financial mechanics and so people who are on the side that benefits can use said misunderstanding abusively. For example, AOC openly supports MMT. Either she's blissfully unaware of the way that would increase the wealth disparity by pushing up the value of financial assets, or she's aware and is actually as sinister as republicans portray her. I tend to think it's the former.
I’d much prefer ignorance over outright manipulation.
If you didn't make the payments because you were just irresponsible, people are less likely to lend you money in the future. That's a big problem if you depend on people loaning you money.
That's called inflation, and the public really doesn't like it. Economists don't actually like it either, nor do governments like it to be too high as that can lead to lots of big problems.
The US is a military, technological, energy & food producing powerhouse. The alternatives are either getting their asses handed to them in a war against their much smaller neighbor or facing a massive demographics crisis
as long as those assets continue to outgain the cost of inflation.
see greece, latin america, russia, etc etc
It is observed that sovereign borrowers that inflate their way out of debt find their ability to borrow in the local currency reduced. They may still be able to borrow USD, though. Argentina in particular comes to mind, with something around 50% of total government debt denominated in USD [0]. Even Russia appears to have $40B in USD or EUR debt (private borrowers in Russia have another $100B or so) [1]. Of course, they can still outright renege on this USD denominated debt but it removes the option of inflating it away.
[0] - https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2021/august/dollar... [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/business/russia-debt-bond...
So, if the payments are easily made, then this isn't a problem?
Edit: I’m surprised people were able to even read this post before they downvoted it. I don’t mind downvotes, but at least comment why I’m wrong please.
Currency appreciation dumps exports and pumps assets/services. You know how "we used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just stick our hand in the next guy's pocket"? Yeah, that's what currency appreciation does (or, more specifically: reserve currency status where we can/must run a current account deficit without seeing the usual depreciation). Economists call it "Dutch Disease" because they first described it in the Dutch empire, but it happened to the British and American empires too. Think of it like a resource curse, but the resource is finance. It's good for people with fat brokerage accounts, it's good for Wall St, but if you earn your money by building regular shit for regular people, it's bad news for you.
I agree with your conclusion -- our taxation and monetary policy is run for the benefit of wealthy Americans at the expense of poor Americans -- I just think you have the particular issue of currency devaluation a bit backwards. I didn't downvote, but I imagine this is why someone else did.
If you're unwilling to interrogate your own beliefs, that makes them come off as shallow. We've all heard fiscally conservative talking heads prattle on about the debt. What we want is insight as to the accuracy or coherence of these ideas, not just a rote regurgitation.
What effective control does the working class have over the national debt if both major parties have continued to raise it no matter what candidate is put foward? And anyway, how does it benefit the cash-strapped working poor to vote to raise its own taxes so that the debt held by rich bondholders can be paid off. I'm not even saying you're wrong, I'm just saying, make it make sense. Or don't, it's not your obligation to do so. But don't be surprised by downvotes in that case.