Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’

[twitomy]

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJsSb4qtILhg&refer=worldwide>

WTF? Spoken as if he has had nothing to do with it..Isnt this want the Repubs were yammering about before the Stimulus?..This Dr.Jeckyll and Hyde act is getting tiresome.

[rucky]

1. um...

nevermind

[twitomy]

4. Well consider this...

What was the reason given for the economic growth during Clintons years? And I heard this ad nauseum from Clinton supporters: "Clinton reduced the deficeit which kept interest rates low helping spur economic growth. This worked so well we had a surplus which Bush squandered"

So after reading these remarks from Obama, it appears he KNOWS spending money you dont have will
eventually kill the economy, and I assume he knows how Clintons policy worked. So what the hell is he doing?

I'm all for the social safety net, SS, medicare, one-payer, etc but Gee-Loweeze, you gotta PAY for it somehow!

[anigbrowl]

2. The obvious inference being that we need to pay it off in the short or medium term

However, imminent emergencies often require action in the short term that's unsustainable in the long term. I realize this may be a difficult concept.

[ThomCat]

3. Well, then perhaps he shouldn't have given trillions of dollars

to Wall Street as a sweetheart gift. A big ol' french kiss to the finance industry lobbyists who seem to control him. This debt load is partially his damned fault. :grr:

If he had spent that money instead creating jobs to rebuilt infrastructure, creating a public works program, the employment rate would be much lower and a whole lot of money would be circulating in the economy right now.

Instead it's sitting in corporate bank accounts doing absolutely nothing of any good to anyone. He fucked this one up royally.
x(

If he had to shovel money into wall street he should have at least taken control over the companies that received the money so that those companies could be reformed in the public interest. At least that way the public would get SOME benefit from all this money we lost an debt we have accumulated.

But instead we got nothing but debt with nothing at all to show for it. Nothing! :(

This was the dumbest of Obama's dumb-ass decisions since he took office.

[twitomy]

6. And that is what pisses me off

If it is such that we HAD to do deficet spending, do it on some TANGIBLE things like roads,bridges schools...Instead its going to the freakin finacial bloodsuckers...

Just so damn disheartening....

I also have another question about this public debt financing..Who is buying this debt? He says China..so China is giving us money in exchange for our T-Bills...I assume they are buying it with
US money they hold? Been trying to get a grip on how this all works...

[Deja Q]

8. Or other countries under the (nice) belief that said foreign aid would make them like us

Either way or another way, the President will get slammed -- and 99.99% of it isn't even HIS fault for crying out loud (Bush started the bailout shtick, and I'm sure Obama can do something. He's a world leader.)

[ThomCat]

9. I wouldn't say 99.99%

After all, at least 60% of the money released so far was released under Obama, so he chose do this bailout and where the bailout money would go. He could have done something smarter instead, and didn't.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. China has been warning us that it won't continue to loan indefinitely without repayment.

Which is what probably spurred this comment.

Of course, he could stop the the lost wars and make a dent in the ever increasing debt that funding them costs. Naw..that would be embarrassing.

[ThomCat]

7. Not only ending the wars, but also cutting the Pentagon budget

by a healthy chunk instead of increasing it. x(

I'd love to see the day that the pentagon budget takes a 20% cut. (to start)

[NYC_SKP]

10. If he entirely removes the cap on SS witholding....

Or even raises it considerably, we'll begin to reverse the trend.

I'm expecting this to play into a plan post-recovery.

[dgibby]

11. I watched the Town Hall Meeting today,

and Bloomberg has taken that remark completely out of context. I am providing a link to the official transcription of the meeting, complete with his speech and his q&a session. The comment you posted here was in response to the last question asked, so just scroll down to the end to read the question and his answer in it's entirety. I think it'll explain a lot.

http://www.democracyfornewmexico.com/files/obamatownhalltranscript5.14.pdf