Deficit and debt ceiling발음듣기
Deficit and debt ceiling
Before we talk about the debt ceiling, it's important to realize the difference between the deficit and the debt.발음듣기
Because these words are thrown around and it's clear that they're related, but sometimes people might confuse one for the other.발음듣기
The deficit is how much you overspend in a given year, while the debt is the total amount, the cumulative amount, of debt you you've gotten over many, many years.발음듣기
So let's take a look, I guess a very simplified example, let's say you have some type of a country.발음듣기
So this country in this year, where it spends $10, even though it only has $6 to spend, it has a $4 deficit.발음듣기
If the country runs the same $4 deficit the year after this, then the debt will increase to $108.발음듣기
Or another way to think about it, it only has 60% of every dollar that it needs to spend right now.발음듣기
So it has to go out into the debt markets and borrow 40% to keep spending at its current rate.발음듣기
And Congress has the power, or Congress has the authority, to essentially limit how much debt we have.발음듣기
And even though Congress has this authority, the way that it's worked in the past, is this kind of just a rubber stamp.발음듣기
Congress has just always allowed the debt ceiling to go up and up and up to fund our borrowing costs.발음듣기
And if you think about it, that kind of makes sense because right now Congress is the one that decides where to spend the money.발음듣기
And so the debt ceiling is like, OK, we've already agreed what you have to spend your money on.발음듣기
It would seem kind of ridiculous for us after we've determined how much you borrow to say that you cannot borrow it.발음듣기
They said, OK, yeah we've told you we need to borrow more money to execute - the executive branch has to run the government - for you to actually run the government based on the budget we told you.발음듣기
And the last time the debt ceiling was raised was actually very recently, February 12, 2010.발음듣기
And right now the Obama administration says, look, we've actually come up against our debt ceiling.발음듣기
We want to raise it, and ideally for the Obama administration, they want to raise it by about $2.4 trillion.발음듣기
So they want to raise it to $16.7 trillion, which will kind of put it off the table for a little bit.발음듣기
The Republicans on the other the side, want to essentially use this, and this is a little bit unusual, to use this as leverage to essentially reduce the deficit.발음듣기
And not only to reduce the deficit, but it's in particular to reduce the deficit through spending cuts.발음듣기
And so that's why it's become this big game of chicken and why we're going up against this limit.발음듣기
Now, one thing that you may or may not realize is that we've actually already hit the debt limit, the current debt limit.발음듣기
And the only reason why the country's continuing to operate, and the only reason why the country has been able to continue to pay interest on its obligations, and pay issue social security checks, and support Medicare, and buy fuel for aircraft carriers, and all the rest, is that Geithner, who's the Treasury Secretary, has been able to find cash in other places, cash normally set aside for employee pensions and all the rest.발음듣기
And has essentially done a little bit of a bookkeeping, taking money from one place to feed another.발음듣기
But what he said, what he's publicly said, is that he won't be able to do that anymore as of August 2, 2011.발음듣기
According to Geithner, at that point, he won't be able to find random pockets of cash here and there and shuffle it around.발음듣기
And so if you think about all of the obligations of the United States, this is a huge oversimplification here.발음듣기
And things like social security, Medicare, defense, and then all of the other stuff that the country has to support, all of their other obligations.발음듣기
So if as of August 2, 2011, we cannot issue any more debt, and Geithner doesn't have any extra cash laying around with these extraordinary measures, then, if those are the only options on the table, The only option is to somehow reduce some of these things by 40%.발음듣기
We're not going to fulfill our obligations to one or more of these things, all of these things that we are legally obligated to fulfill.발음듣기
That Congress has said, these are the things that the United States should be spending its money on.발음듣기
And we don't want to see retirees not be able to get evicted from their houses, or aircraft carriers not have fuel, or whatever else.발음듣기
And I want to be clear, a default, it's usually referred to not fully paying the interest on debt that you owe.발음듣기
All of a sudden, if United States does not fulfill any of those obligations, then all of the obligations becomes suspect.발음듣기
And the reason why this is a big deal, as you can imagine, if you borrow money, you've always been good at paying back that money, you're going to pay lower interest than other people would have to pay.발음듣기
You either delay your payment, or you say you don't have the cash to pay your payments, then people's like, wow you're a much riskier person to lend money to.발음듣기
And so the perception is if the United States were to default on its debt, or any of its obligations, that interest rates would go up.발음듣기
And the reason why this would really not great is because it would make the debt and the deficit even worse.발음듣기
And on top of that, it's not just that the government's debt, the interest on the government's debt will go up, but interest on all debt in the United States will probably go up.발음듣기
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