this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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Explain Like I'm Five

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ELI5 the US debt/budget and how come it seems like I give you 10 dollars and I get two back? I just don't get how its not a regular checking acount situation? How can we be trillions in debt? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world
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[–] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

There's literally no way to answer this accurately, completely, and precisely in any reasonable way in a post on Lemmy. So, please take that into consideration as we're all simplifying the answer down to the point where nothing is actually completely 100% true.

That being said: National debt on this order is basically us taking a loan from future generations so we can waste the money now.