The national debt is turning economists’ heads

Make Me Smart November 8, 2023 Transcript

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Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, yeah, born ready.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah why not? Hello, everyone. I’m Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m Kai Ryssdal. Thanks for joining us on this sorry, checking Wednesday, November 8, sorry you lose track sometimes.

Kimberly Adams 

It’s like that sometimes, it’s like that sometimes. And this Wednesday, we’re gonna do some news, we’re gonna do some smiles, the basics and get y’all out of here. So Kai, why don’t you go first?

Kai Ryssdal 

I will, I will. This one comes to us, courtesy of Neil Irwin, at Axios, formerly at the New York Times and I think actually before that The Washington Post, sometimes a friend of the program in the afternoon, he’s been here for a while, super sharp guy. Anyway, Neil points out in his newsletter, today, a white paperish thing from the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, which is a big thing, techy thing affiliated with the Aspen Institute, led by among other people, Hank Paulson, former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, also former Secretary of Treasury. Anyway, they’re out of the white paper called, “Building a More Resilient US Economy.” And one of the things that they point out in that white paper, is that and I’m just gonna read it from this graph here, “it would take spending cuts or tax increases equivalent to $2,400 per American per year, to stabilize the national debt.” Now, about that, number one, interesting that we’re talking about stabilizing the national debt instead of reducing it. Number two, this is kind of an indicator that given where interest rates are, which is high and going to be there for a while, and I’ve talked about this before on this podcast, how much more relative to two years ago, it is costing us to service our debt. And that their cost is going to be high for a while, serious thinkers about this economy are actually getting worried about it for the first time in a long time. Anyway, we’ll put the link in the show notes. It doesn’t seem like a lot of money, $2,400 per American per year. But there are a lot of people in this economy, as we know, based on Marketplace’s reporting on lots of other people’s and including the Fed who don’t have $400, let alone $2,400 In case of emergency, nationally, fiscal or their own personal. So, so debt is becoming more of a thing, the challenges of it are becoming more of a thing. And it’s, it’s interesting to read about this stuff now, because it’s really a problem.

Kimberly Adams 

It’s fascinating to hear that number broken down, like across all Americans, when most of the, you know, serious thinkers that you’re talking about, actually think that most of the burden should be picked up by people at the higher end of the income scale. So for example, you know, simply taxing more of people’s income for Social Security would fix the Social Security problem. If you just like, tax people’s income at a higher, like beyond the cap that it’s at right now. You fix that problem pretty easily. It’s just, you know, the political will for it is not necessarily there. Or even something like reducing benefits for people who are already extraordinarily wealthy and have other retirement, you know, options would help the problem. Again, no political will for it. So that $2,400 per person. Yeah, but like most of the people having serious conversations about actually fixing this, don’t want it spread across everybody.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Anyway, that’s my news. What do you got?

Kimberly Adams 

I’m excited to read that. I have a follow up to a story that I brought up on the show a couple of months ago, just because it kind of piqued my interest, which was a ballot initiative in Maine, where they were trying to basically socialize their power companies in Maine. I don’t know if you remember us talking about this. But they, people in Maine were really unhappy with their high electricity bills and bad service and that their power companies were not, you know, making the investments in clean the clean energy transition that they wanted. So they had a ballot initiative to try to replace their two main power companies to a new and I’m reading here from the Bangor Daily News in Maine, a new electric utility overseen by an elected board. And this lost, this question failed. And not only did it fail, it failed badly. 68% voted no, 32% voted yes. But what was interesting is is this graph here, “it was a political victory for CMP and Versace. These are the two power companies whose parent companies poured nearly $39 million into saving their businesses in a campaign fronted by notable political figures. Our Power, the political group that backed the referendum was outgunned financially spending only $1.2 million over the course of the race.” In CNET, they talked about the fact that if Maine had succeeded in creating a statewide public utility, it could have spurred similar ballot measures across the country. “’It’s a great template and model for other states to replicate,’ said Candace Fortin, the US campaigns manager for the climate activism group 350.org, which endorsed the public option in Maine”. It, I know there were a bunch of very important races and elections yesterday. But I was paying attention to this one, because this was unique in terms of citizens saying, We don’t like what we’re being offered, especially when it comes to climate change in service. Here’s a way for us to fix it. And it could have been a template for a lot of other people. So you saw the interest, particularly from energy companies that did not want this to happen, that I believe even the governor was against this, saying that it would chase out, you know, some of their businesses. And I just thought it was super fascinating the story and that it failed. It failed badly. And just the amount they were outspent by, which tells you a little bit of something that’s coming in 2024, which is that the money matters, the money matters, because the money controls the messaging, and that makes a big difference.

Kai Ryssdal 

The money controls the messaging. That’s good line. Yeah.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah. So that’s my news. Shall we do some smiles?

Kai Ryssdal 

Let’s I have no smiles.

Kimberly Adams 

That’s okay. I’ve got two. And you know what, why don’t you take my second one? Because if you’d found it first, I think it would have been your smile.

Kai Ryssdal 

Okay. All right. All right, I’m looking at oh, I saw I saw this the other day.

Kimberly Adams 

I knew you’d like it. Well, I’ll do mine. And then you can come back to that one. So one of them is from stateline.org, which is something that’s been kind of going for a little while, but it’s happening more often. So many national parks and state parks are starting to roll out these all terrain wheelchairs that have these super strong treads, and they can go up and down like mountains and things like that. And so there. I’m just going to read here from Stateline. “In recent years, there’s been a growing awareness of the need to make outdoor recreation more accessible.” And so other states including Minnesota, California, Michigan, Vermont, and Wisconsin, are starting to basically include these chairs. So I’m looking here, I”n Minnesota, such efforts got a significant boost. Earlier this year, when legislators funded the Department of Natural Resources $149.9 million, Get Out MORE,” which is modernize outdoor recreation experience initiatives. And part of that included $34.5 million for more accessible recreational equipment and revitalized trails in parks and public lands, and $9.5 million to modernize facilities, such as campgrounds, and lodges. And so like, I would encourage you to go and look at this article and have a look at this chair, because this is a mix of public investment, and technology, working together to you know, basically make these outdoor experiences more accessible to more people. And I thought that was really cool. And it made me smile.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, super cool. Also, by the way, if you’re a veteran, you can get into a lot of national parks, as well as national battlefields and all that jazz for free on Veterans Day, because that’s a thing. Okay, so yeah, I saw this the other day. And for whatever reason, it went on by me. So there’s a great piece in The New York Times Magazine about the James Webb Space Telescope, its capabilities, what it’s showing us and how much more it is showing us now than the instruments that we had, say 100 years ago. And yes, of course, you say to yourself, ah, you moron. Of course, we’re seeing now more with better instruments than we did 100 years ago, but really seeing what they could see 100 years ago, which was really cool. And now seeing what what James Webb can show us. It’s absolutely stunning. So we’ll put it on the show page. The imagery is absolutely incredible. It is it is totally mind blowing. And if you’re some kid flipping through the Sunday, New York Times Magazine, because your parents left it lying around or something. And this introduces you to space imagery, astronomy, all those things. It’s it’s absolutely incredible. And I highly recommend it. And yes, thank you, Kimberly for suggesting it. It’s it’s truly extraordinary.

Kimberly Adams 

What stunned me about that piece was I had no idea they had photos that clear, and that precise, in the late 1800s of space and Nebula and, you know, stars and like I knew that they had blurry pictures, but I didn’t realize that they’d gotten them that precise. And I wonder how much of that had to do with the fact that there was just less artificial light competing. You know?

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh boy. Yeah, of course.

Kimberly Adams 

Sure as as we’ve had more artificial light competing even though our cameras have gotten better, the photos have had more of a hurdle to overcome because of more artificial light. Anyway, super cool piece in the visual interactive on the New York Times website is just beautiful. And so well done. Yeah, that’s really good. Okay. That is it for us today. We’re gonna be back tomorrow. And that’s our show where we play clips of audio and talk about it. So if you heard a story this week with some audio clips that you think we should chat about it caught your attention, or you have something to say about it. Let us know. We might include it in our Thursday show. So send it to us at makemesmart@marketplace.org. And you can also call us and leave us a voice message. Yes. Voice, oops I was supposed to be done. 508-U-B-SMART.

Kai Ryssdal 

It’s alright, Jay’s just doing whatever he wants. Make Me Smart is produced by Courtney Bergsieker. Ellen Rolfes office writes our newsletter. Today’s program was engineered by Jay Siebold. Our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi.

Kimberly Adams 

It’s like being ushered off at the Oscars or something. Ben Tolliday and Daniel Ramirez composed our theme music our senior producer is Marissa Cabrera. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts and Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital. Got it.

Kai Ryssdal

No you got it. We’re done.