USA@250: The United States of Anxiety - debt, divide and Donald Trump
Donald Trump TOI correspondent from Washington When President Donald Trump asserted repeatedly in recent months that the United States has become the “hottest country in
Donald Trump TOI correspondent from Washington When President Donald Trump asserted repeatedly in recent months that the United States has become the “hottest country in the world” little could anyone have imagined he meant it literally although some of his supporters attribute magical qualities to him.In record temperatures across parts of America, including his own anticipated 107F (42C) in the nation’s capital on July 4, the MAGA supremo has promised an extra-long speech on the occasion of the country’s 250th anniversary – except there may be few people to hear him in person, particularly since his grievance-laden speeches have now hit exhaustion point even among many supporters.Trump’s "Great American State Fair," where he is to ply his greatest hits, was intended to showcase the nation's diversity through exhibits from all 50 states. Instead, the heat wave has turned parts of the celebration into an endurance test. State pavilions are struggling with embarrassingly sparse crowds, visitors are seeking refuge under misting stations, and vendors are selling more bottled water than souvenirs or nostalgia.As fireworks are ready to crackle across the skies to celebrate America@250 later tonight, the United States arrives at its semiquincentennial in decidedly lukewarm mood, the heat dome notwithstanding: sketchily self-confident, scarily indebted, economically resilient, culturally exhausted, and politically combustible – all amid growing doubts about its future.If nations could be compared to people at a birthday party, America@250 is the wealthy uncle who insists he has never felt better while discreetly asking others how he looks even as he brags about the stock market and his own wealth.The more consequential numbers, however, lie not on thermometers or in market indices but in government ledgers.
America's national debt is closing in on $ 40 trillion, up from just $71 million in the republic's infancy. It has financed wars, depressions, pandemics, financial crises and tax cuts, while becoming almost as permanent a feature of Washington as partisan gridlock. The debt has grown so large that it has entered the realm of abstraction: $ 40 trillion is less a number than a geological formation.Washington continues to borrow with remarkable ease because the dollar remains the world's dominant reserve currency and Treasury securities remain the safest asset in global finance. But interest payments are consuming an ever-larger share of federal spending, prompting economists across the ideological spectrum to warn that today's political comforts may become tomorrow's fiscal straitjacket. While America's credit card still enjoys the world's highest limit, the monthly statement is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.Meanwhile, one of the more sobering portraits of the country comes not from Wall Street but from the newly released "State of the States" report by the bipartisan State of the Nation Project. Drawing together scholars associated with think tanks spanning the political spectrum -- and advisers to presidents from Bill Clinton through Trump -- the study examined 31 indicators across every state. Its conclusion borders on a parado Americans have become richer, but have not become happier.Not a single state recorded improvement in overall life satisfaction.
The BriefWire