U.S. debt clock hits ceiling in Manhattan Photo Democracy Now Author: Democracy now
WASHINGTON, May 30th. There are currently 31 billionaires richer than the US Treasury Department, which had just $38.8 billion in cash at the close of business last Friday.
However, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that if the country’s debt limit was not raised by June 5, the United States would default on its debt for the first time in history, causing a shock to the global economy.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 18 Americans are actually richer than the country they call home, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates; and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin can also claim to be richer than their country, as can the Walton family behind the Wal-Mart chain of stores.
A RT report claims that Bernard Arnault, the French CEO of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, ousted Musk from the top spot after buying Twitter for $44 billion, which he admitted was “financially unwise” .
While US President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy reached a tentative deal to raise the debt ceiling over the weekend, the text of which was released on Sunday ahead of this Wednesday’s House vote, many in both parties have objections to parts of the deal.
If the debt limit is not increased by June 5, the Treasury will be unable to meet the $92 billion spending commitments scheduled for this week, forcing it to choose which commitments to meet.
Economic experts expect him to prioritize paying interest on his massive $31.8 trillion debt, meaning that any interest-free payments (such as benefits like Social Security or Medicaid) are likely to dry up.
It is progressive groups in the US who object to the preliminary agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling, believing that it protects the richest in the country at the expense of the disadvantaged, according to Prensa Latina.
According to civil rights associations, the deal reached will reduce food aid, rental assistance, educational plans and more, while making it easier for the wealthy to evade taxes.
This is due to the introduction of new work requirements for beneficiaries of the Supplemental Food Assistance Program and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, while reducing the funds approved for the Internal Revenue Service, which was intended to strengthen the identification of the rich, whom they are not meeting their tax obligations.
The text, which must now win support from both houses of the Legislature, will include two years of limits on federal non-military spending, but it keeps the Pentagon’s 2024 budget ($886 billion) stable and increases by one. percent by 2025.
For their part, rating agencies have already begun preparing for a default. Fitch and Morningstar have put the country’s AAA rating on review. S&P Global did not follow suit, though the agency had given the US an AA+ rating after a previous downgrade in 2011 that was never reversed, RT added.
Source: Juventud Rebelde