There were many, many times the US was in significantly less debt than they are now.

Also, your other statement about Keynesian economics is wrong. We've had many times where government spending contracted and growth was rapid. Look no further than the 1990s: The government tightened up how much it spent over the whole decade, and we had a lot of growth. Comparatively, the 2000s saw rapid growth in government, and we ended on a horrible note in regards to the economy.

As for OP, it would be horrific to have an open line of credit.

Obama and many others said (of the fiscal cliff) that we couldn't survive the tax increases, and get away without a recession. How is it feasible, then, that we keep spending what we are without raising taxes to compensate for it? Alternatively, how can we keep spending $3.5 trillion USD a year, raise $2.5 trillion in revenues, and expect things to magically get better, when our country shows very few signs of recovery?

Eventually, you have to balance the books, one way or the other. By continuing to have insane annual deficits, we're only going to visit a horrific crash down the road, and it'll only get more severe.

I wonder how everyone will like it when the day comes that the government can't make Social Security, Medicare, EBT, or other such payments, because there's no more money to borrow. The kind of recession that will bring will be more horrific than any supposed recession caused by the fiscal cliff.

You're on a speeding train that is heading for brick wall and you're upset that the siren warning the conductor to apply breaks is too loud ...

The debt to GDP ratio has grown from (roughly) 40% in 2000 to over 100% today, the deficit is over $1 Trillion dollars and shows no signs of falling, unfunded liabilities are now starting to come due (pushing spending up), the credit rating is falling (pusing interest rates up), and we will likely see another recession in the next 5 years.

 
the fiscal cliff was created in order to please credit rating companies.  They were going to downgrade us until we did that.  How does printing unlimited money help creditors?  Paying with devalued dollars is the same as not paying all of the money back.

nope. if Romney would have been elected, we'd still be going over the cliff. Republicans can't agree on anything within their own party. and the Democrat controled Senate would have still faut for higher taxes.

politics isn't partisan, nor by partisan any more. it's political timing, and that has to be perfect.

OT: this is a tough one.

Printing money is all well and good as long as there are countries willing to finance the US debt. There are a few problems though. I don't see any solutions put fourth to reign in the debt mid to long term and the US needs to seriously consider getting rid of the so called Fed which is a privately owned central bank and one which charges the federal government interest on every dollar put into circulation.

In my opinion the US needs to go back to the pre 1913 model which made it not only the richest country in the world but also one that was financially sound and one with little debt.

Another thing the US should seriously consider is scaling back it's ridiculously bloated military industrial complex and reduce unnecessary spending and bases while maintaining a credible and strong military which won't be easy but is a necessity.

Yes because in the 90s the economy was doing well so the gov wanted to increase interest and cut gov spending. Economics Class...

To expand a bit more on my previous post.

The US has been able to get away with their massive deficits and poor fiscal decisions due to the fact that they can lean on creditor countries like Japan and China to buy up their debt. The US has been fortunate that the US dollar continues to be the defacto world trading currency. However things have been put into motion over the last several years especially where alternatives are starting to emerge like the Chinese Yuan for instance.

If the US continues to play things the same way it will reach a point where other countries will either refuse to buy up more debt or will start selling off their holdings in US debt as it will become increasingly clear that the US will be unable to service its debts. When this occurs it is safe to say that the US will go into an economic meltdown and will take many other countries down with them.

I suspect this may be the reason why the US has been getting more agressive militarily in the Middle East securing more resources while also relocating the majority of their naval power to the Pacific to contain China.

As an outsider looking in the whole situation is a bemusing. It seems your government parties are at the 2 extremes of government funding theories with neither having enough power to enforce it one way or the other so you are left with the worst possible situation of insufficient funds to pay for how much the government spends. Seems the people and Government need to get their arses into gear really fast and decide whether you want low taxes and the smaller government and less services that that would entail or much higher taxes and the existing services, can't have both and the longer it takes to rectify the situation the worse the resulting recession and meltdown will be to fix it.

I want to see a balanced budget amendment...not more spending/credit. Is the US ever going to work towards a balanced budget or are they just planning on deficit spending for the rest of eternity?

I know Canada has a budget deficit currently, but if I'm correct the plan is for us to be back in the black by 2016...with the deficit reduced gradually each year. But the US isn't even showing signs of spending reduction.