The 2024 election cycle has been noticeably absent from discussion of how to solve the U.S. national debt crisis.
Vice President Kamala Harris is officially Accepted the rules She's scheduled to debate former President Donald Trump on Tuesday, but with just two months until the election and only one presidential debate scheduled, young Americans can't afford to ignore the issue.
There is much discussion about the costs that future generations will incur from the effects of climate change, but more attention needs to be paid to financial parity. $35 Trillion National Debt This threatens to be the most serious fiscal policy dilemma and fundamental burden that America's future generations will inherit.
A thorough discussion of how best to deal with this crisis should be the focus of the upcoming presidential debates. Sadly, the silence on this issue has been deafening.
It was shocking that CNN's Dana Bash didn't bring up the issue on Harris' show. First Election InterviewThe national debt was not even mentioned at the Democratic National Convention.
During America’s Gilded Age of the 2000s and early 2010s, it was easy to accept Hamilton’s theory that national debt was necessary for a nation to grow. While this theory is true to some extent, it has limitations given the size and trends of the national and global economies.
We are currently on a path of a sharp decline in the value of the US dollar, with accompanying skyrocketing taxes and less we can buy in terms of government services. This is an unsustainable and tragic trajectory for our shared common property: our government debt.
At a time when many students are already struggling to pay off their student loans, bequeathing a massive national debt to younger generations and future Americans is not only economically impractical and shortsighted, it is a generational moral failure.
Yet even as the country is rapidly crossing the red line, many in the American political establishment seem no longer interested in rationally limiting the national debt.
Instead of asking Harris about the national debt, Bash asked her about the economic issue Democrats want to focus on right now: inflation.
Harris responded with the exact angle Democrats want to sell: As of July, the annual inflation rate had finally fallen. Less than 3%If runaway inflation were like a ship taking up water, Democrats are celebrating that the water has mostly stopped, but the plain reality is that the ship is still taking up water after three years of cumulative price hikes of 20 percent.
To make matters worse, the sovereign debt crisis remains an even bigger threat to the health of the ship.
The US national debt is currently 122 percent Our GDP: $28.6 trillionIf left unchecked, the rise in the U.S. national debt-to-GDP ratio and the costs of servicing that debt signal the collapse of the U.S. domestic economy and its international preeminence.
If runaway cumulative inflation is like water filling a ship's hull, then a national debt that consistently exceeds annual GDP is like corroding masts. The national debt is now a priority crisis that is in danger of capsizing at sea.
We are entering unprecedented territory. In 1946, the US national debt reached nearly 120% of GDP.By 1963, in the midst of World War II, the debt-to-GDP ratio had fallen to 50% and continued to fall thereafter, to around 31%. In 2013 it reached 100% again.With the number reaching 122% by 2024, a level not even reached in World War II, the country must now have some tough discussions about the current situation and how to fix it.
A handful of prominent economists, including Paul Krugman, Advise not to worryBut, of course, even Krugman acknowledges that complications can arise in situations like this.
Economic historian Neil Ferguson Canary in the coal mine For many years Recent Opinions from BloombergIn , he outlined how the national debt is already affecting geopolitics and the effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy. He also consistently Net debt service costs exceeding defense spending are an ominous sign of declineIn fact, one only needs to look back to 1991 to see that the Soviet economy collapsed, in addition to other factors that also exist in the United States today. Unable to cover debt service costs.
As national debt grows, debt servicing costs rise. eat into government revenue It is used to pay off the principal debt and ultimately enable the government to function. The net interest payments on the national debt alone would soon cover 25 percent of U.S. tax revenue.
of Fiscal Responsibility Act The 2023 target was an appropriate step to reduce the estimated rate of growth in the national debt. 3 percent Over a decade, the debt is expected to reach $45.2 trillion (115% of projected GDP) by 2033. The bipartisan compromise is laudable. But such incremental cuts will not be enough to solve the problem.
It is impossible to ignore the fundamental corrosion that has taken place over the past decade to America's fiscal future.
The 2024 presidential election must prioritize freeing younger and future Americans from public debt that threatens to undermine America's global standing. The American economy must be made sustainable.
Jeremy Etelson was a Democratic Party staffer in Maryland. He earned his J.D. from George Washington University in 2024 and his MA in Political Theory and Intellectual History from Cambridge University in 2019.
