Is the size of the U.S. national debt a pressing issue?

[Famous Mortimer]

To all the Republicans and Libertarians saying "yes"

Why?

[DC Al Fine]

Correlation is not causation Adam. I'm sure you think that rapid growth had nothing to do with having basically no industrial competitors after the war

[ElectionsGuy]

C'mon. All the lefties (not here, but in general) thought the debt was a big issue when Bush started two wars, now you don't care.

[windjammer]

No, not right now

This. The USA will never be in the situation of Greece for some obvious reasons. So right now, it's not a pressing issue.

[bedstuy]

C'mon. All the lefties (not here, but in general) thought the debt was a big issue when Bush started two wars, now you don't care.

That's different.  When you're having decent economic growth and low unemployment, you need to be running a balanced budget.  That's part of how you afford to step in when there's an economic shock.
 
Also, wasting $2 trillion on Iraq is different from paying firefighters, building bridges and sending senior citizens their Social Security.  You can't afford to waste $2 trillion on a war because it has far less multiplier effect.  Think about it, if you spend on social security, the money goes into the economy and people spend it.  If you spend money on a new bridge, it creates new efficiencies and economic activity for years in the future.  If you build a bomb, you help an arms manufacturer and then, you use it and its gone. 

[Mordecai]

C'mon. All the lefties (not here, but in general) thought the debt was a big issue when Bush started two wars, now you don't care.

There were no lefties cheering on the Bush tax cuts that exacerbated the problem. That was all the conservatives.

What the left-wingers realize is that cutting social spending during recovery will only hurt the economy and that you can't get the deficit back down by lowering taxes even further.

[Redalgo]

Ya, even for me in thinking balanced budgets are important to have, income tax cuts and robust defense spending are the most bothersome measures and get in the way of increasing funds for social programs.

[IceSpear]

I think it's an important issue. But despite the protestations of the Very Serious People and the Republicans who only started caring about it in January 2009, the economy and unemployment are much more important.

[AkSaber]

Yes, because it represents a tremendous transfer of wealth from the working class upward to those who lend us our own money on interest (the Federal Reserve) and to foreign despots and financiers.

^^^^^^^

Exactly summarized the reality of our situation.

[eric82oslo]

Yes, because the military budget could easily be reduced by more than 90%.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Yes, because the military budget could easily be reduced by more than 90%.

Cuts of that level are only possible if you don't mind having Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and likely some others deciding they need nuclear weapons of their own once Uncle Sam decides to withdraw from being the world's policeman.

[politicallefty]

I don't think so. Most on the right seem to fixate on the actual number as opposed to its relation to GDP. As long as GDP grows at at least an adequate pace and the deficit continues to drop, it's really not urgent at all. As it is, the budget deficit has indeed been dropping rapidly.

As others have mentioned the Bush years, my problem isn't necessarily with the deficits themselves. My complaint is that you should not be running up sizable deficits during times of relative economic well-being. The Clinton surpluses should been maintained and used to pay down the debt and/or set aside for a rainy day fund. You do not cut taxes and start two wars. Were it not for the unnecessarily consistent Bush deficits, we probably could have weathered the Great Recession a lot better than we did.