What is the real reason the US is in so much debt?

[edpell]

There are only four big federal spending items 1) military about 1000 billion, 2) health care about 800 billion, 3) interest about 400 billion, and 4) ag subsidies about 300 billion. If we cut all of these by 50% we would almost have a balanced budget. Social security is of course off-budget because it has its own tax base and 2.4 trillion in treasury notes.

Why? Because no one wants to cut any of these.

 

[WhoWee]

Social security is of course off-budget because it has its own tax base and 2.4 trillion in treasury notes.

 

[Ryumast3r]

I have not seen it said, I may have missed it, I would say the reason we are in debt is we spend more than we make.

Why? Because it produces immediate satisfaction and the idea of future pain is an abstraction that has little influence on peoples minds/actions/reasoning. Some even expect to be dead or out of office when the pain comes and they do not care (simple selfishness).

Look up a couple of posts, and several times in this thread:

There are a lot of reasons, and it doesn't just come down to "hey we spent too much." I mean, of course we spent more than we're taking in... that much is obvious.