Debt

Watching the debt ceiling debate is a battle in futility. Two thirds of the budget is mandatory spending (social security, Medicare, Medicaid) and is off the table. One half of what is left is defense and that is off the table. That leaves 16% to work with and that includes things like VA benefits, school lunch programs and food stamps. Does anyone believe some person would campaign on cutting food stamps. Everyone knows that you have to look at entitlements and everyone also knows that the answer is printing more money and since the harm from that will not happen until the current batch is out of office, that is the logical way to go. If common sense prevailed they would realize that you bring down the debt like you brought it up on a year by year bases of slowing the growth. No one has to take a cut they just get slightly smaller increase. Let's say that inflation is 4% for the next 70 years but budgets are only increased by 3%. What happens. Real government spending decreases by one percent each year. The record breaking 2022 budget was 6.3 trillion. 6.3 trillion at 4% for 70 years equals $98 trillion and 6.3 trillion at 3% for 70 years is $50 trillion. That's a $48 billion surplus. This is what happens when you keep the increase in spending a little behind the inflation rate. Here is what happened last year with social security. The inflation rate in 2022 was 8% and everyone on social security got an 8.7% increase. Just the opposite of how things should be done.