Government debt and household debt are not the same thing. The politicians know better but they know people don’t. So they really lay it on thick to equate the two things.
Your debt isn’t creating jobs or industries. Government debt does. You’re not able to sell your debt. Government can.
I think technically, there isn’t a ceiling for how much debt a country can take on as long as it’s growing. It’s not great, but also I don’t think it’s as bad as people think
AA5B@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Part of the problem is some debt is necessary for large or expensive projects. Think of it as similar to your home mortgage: most of us could not buy a home without it. Similarly governments have large or multi year projects that can be difficult to pay as you go and make sense to take out debt.
But everyone likes being Santa Clause , everyone likes bringing home the pork, and it’s a simple matter of writing a little more debt. No big deal.
A traditional Republican position is that thinking is insane, it’s not fiscally responsible. We can’t afford that. It makes a lot of sense until you see what republicans actually tend to do. In today’s world I imagine some republicans still have some twisted concept of fiscal responsibility for kicking millions off healthcare, but it boggles the mind to use that plus take on additional debt to give tax cuts to the wealthy. That is very much NOT fiscally responsible. If there is anyone out there who still believes in traditional Republican positions, they should be ashamed of what it’s become
A traditional Democrat position is we have human services and infrastructure that are important enough to write more debt. That sounds expensive, but again, think of it like that home mortgage: some things are important enough.
Realistically, the cost of debt rises and falls with a country’s economy, so you can have unexpected results where additional debt causes business to increase, making debt cheaper