Why is it that something only Americans should hear about every year their national debt like all other countries national end up in the news around the world?

27 comments

  1. America is, all things considered, extremely libertarian and individualistic. National debt represents mutual debt held by society versus an individual. Very vocal libertarian sects of the country are against that since it’s in stark contrast to their economic beliefs.

    It’s also a major point of leverage by the minority party to obstruct legislation.

  2. >Why is it that something only Americans should hear about every year their national debt like all other countries national end up in the news around the world?

    …que?

  3. Seems to be a hot issue for republicans but when they got into office they spend just as much as democrats do.

  5. One underlying problem is that since we don’t pass annual budgets anymore, we’re dependent on Congress passing short term funding bills every few months

    Failure to do so triggers an automatic set of temporary spending cuts, and that is used as a huge game of political football to gain bipartisan support for a partisan demand

  6. I wish it was actually seriously discussed lol. As is, both sides bring it up whenever it benefits them and then proceeds to ignore it until the next time it might be an useful leverage.

    As a fiscal conservative, I’ve been pretty much politically homeless ever since Bush senior. Don’t believe the hysterical rhetoric on the media.

  7. Our national debt has been politicized. I doubt either party really cares about the actual debt and it’s effects on the US. But, it’s a great tool to use to beat the other party over the head on a national stage. It’s just another, in a very long list of items, used for our two party system to play their decades long game of Gotcha!

  8. You’d have to ask the news outlets in the other countries why they find it worthy of coverage.

  10. Most Americans don’t get the difference between debt and deficits. When Clinton was president 25 years ago we briefly achieved a balanced annual budget and had no deficit. People, lawmakers included, immediately got excited about spending the excess or “returning it to the taxpayers,” ignoring the annual debt, which was $5.5 trillion in 1998. Then a Republican president succeeded Clinton and we began running annual deficits again, and the total national debt soared (it’s past $31 trillion now) to the point where nobody understands a number that high or wants to do anything about it. If we’d seized the moment in Clinton’s second term and instituted a debt paydown plan instead of being stupid, we’d be in much different shape today.

  11. Because international state/local news has decided it is important enough to share with its citizens.

  12. It’s a way for politicians to signal that they’re fiscally responsible because they know the average voter doesn’t understand fiscal policy.

  14. It’s only a problem when a Democrat is president. It magically goes away during Republican administrations.

  15. Are you referring to our debt ceiling? Because coverage of it makes it seem like a bigger deal politically than it actually is.

    Basically we have high polarization and members of Congress (usually – but not exclusively Republicans) keep it around to try and force political concessions from the other side and to show their supporters that they’re “fighting for them.” In practice these tactics end up being resolved with minor budget deals in the end.

    Conversations around our national debt in general used to be a more heated topic. But various factors led to it being a less important issue. 1) Many economists reevaluated how important it actually is over the last few years. While there’s still a lot of disagreement about the specifics, they generally aren’t as concerned as they were 20-30 years ago. 2) Donald Trump openly doesn’t care about the debt and the deficit. And since he’s still the de-facto leader of the Republican Party, many of the lower ranking members have since stopped emphasizing it as much. 3) Given our size and relatively lower borrowing costs, we can generally afford to be less fiscally conservative than most other countries.

  16. It’s a massive problem and the economy affects our daily lives? I don’t really have an explanation to why foreign nationals would remain willfully uninformed about important subjects such as their national economy. Likewise, I have no answer to why foreign news agencies would talk about our economic problems instead of their own.

  19. Because it was named “the national debt” and described in a misleading way to make people care. The entire point of the “national debt” is to stop the government from doing things.

  20. The thing is that our National Debt is mostly Domestic, and the Debt is owed to citizens. Japan actually has more debt than we do, towards their central government.

  21. US deficits and debt are global news because the dollar is the primary reserve currency for the world. I’d note that, at least if you follow business news, the same numbers for Japan, Germany, the UK, and a handful of other countries get ink here as well.

    Also, afaik, deficits and debt are heated issues in many countries. One of the biggest questions facing a society is how much government spending to allow, how much to rely on taxes vs’ borrowing to fund it, and whether that leaves the economy/currency in an unsustainable position.

  22. Well, 2008 almost collapsed the global economy, so I presume our economic health is something your news media perceive as relevant.

  23. Public debt, finance and banking are all conceptually difficult to understand. It does take some education and effort to have a well informed opinion on the matter. Many Americans understand these things well enough but many don’t. But that won’t stop all Americans from having a strong opinion about something.

  25. National Debt in the US is only so heated because no one really agrees on what to do about it, just that it should be reduced.

    It’s kind of the same issue as wanting to order out to eat dinner, but both you, your partner, and anyone else living with you can’t agree on where you should order from, and each of you being against what other suggestions are put forward by others.

    It’s that way with national debt – we have people who think we “only need to tax the rich more”, which only works until the rich decide to move to another country and take a lot of their money with them. There’s people who think we just need to reduce military/defense spending, which would work okay until China or Russia decides to be all hostile like it’s the Cold War all over again, or if any kind of WW3 would get sparked off. There’s people who think we just need to cut down on welfare and social assistance programs, but that would piss off a ton of people who depend on those programs just to feed themselves or their kids. Insert a ton of other ways to reduce the national debt, but no one really agreeing to what to do about it.

  26. For us in America it is important since it relates to funding and services.
     

    For those outside of America it is probably related to the economy. The usa is a really big economy, so if anything bad happens it can have a huge impact across the world. Look at the 2008 financial crisis for an example.
     

  27. Because the solutions are very personal. You either have to pay a lot more in taxes or cut a lot of services people care about.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like