this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Federal revenues in November rose $23 billion to $275 billion, a 9% increase from a year earlier.

Outlays jumped $88 billion to $589 billion, 18% higher than a year earlier. Interest payments on U.S. government debt accounted for $25 billion of the increase.

The outlay for interest on the debt in November, at $80 billion, surpassed the $66 billion outlay for national defense, which was up $8 billion from a year earlier. The outlay for the government-run Medicare health insurance program also rose by $8 billion, to $93 billion, while the outlay for the government-run Medicaid program for the poor and disabled climbed $2 billion to $50 billion.

TFW your interest payments approach medicare spending

The weighted average interest rate on the $26 trillion of outstanding Treasury securities rose to 3.10% last month from 2.22% in November of last year.

Seems nice in pflp-octoplushie sense, if fed won't drop interest rates in the next year, libertarian bugbear about deficits will come closer to fruition

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[–] plinky@hexbear.net 5 points 2 years ago (14 children)

its not a problem for now, but paying 1 trillion in debt service and having 1.7 trillion deficit is already problematic.

if there is new oil shock however( 🙏 ), they'll remain that high, and the average rate will rise further, that would be a deep shit creek.

[–] Kaplya@hexbear.net 13 points 2 years ago (12 children)

Sorry this is just neoliberal nonsense. The Federal Reserves creates money out of thin air, it will never not be able to service its debt.

Deficit simply means the money that the government has spent out and hasn’t collected back in taxes yet. Which is good because you want the money to stay in circulation to stimulate the economy. The Clinton administration had a record budget surplus (government taxes more money than they spend, meaning less money in circulation) in the 1990s which then what paved the way towards recession.

The problem with the US is how much of those deficit is spent disproportionately into the rich people’s hands (military industrial complex, interest payments to bondholders etc.) rather than investing into the real sector of the economy.

[–] ByteFoolish@hexbear.net 4 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Why would the government need to tax the money back if the Federal Reserve can create money out of thin air?

I think the answer is to control the amount of inflation. This explains why we saw high inflation after they turned the printer on overdrive. And they can't just tax half of all money created back so they use other methods like increasing the interest rate. Higher interest rates means more incentive to save and fewer new loans therefore less new money being created.

But I'm no expert so please correct me if I'm wrong

[–] jabrd@hexbear.net 4 points 2 years ago

Taxing the money back out of the economy is standard Keynesian methodology for how to fight inflation but it’s literally never been successfully implemented because it’s too politically unpopular for anyone to actually do it

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