The national debt is turning economists’ heads
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 November 2023
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
High interest rates are making our already enormous national debt more expensive, and many economists are worried. We’ll discuss what it may cost to get the national debt under control. Plus, a referendum to replace Maine’s two main power companies with a publicly owned alternative was shot down in yesterday’s election. And, the James Webb Space Telescope is revolutionizing the way we see the universe.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
- “What it would cost to stabilize the soaring national debt” from Axios
- “Maine voters reject utility takeover after heavy spending from CMP and Versant” from Bangor Daily News
- “What the Failed Pine Tree Power Proposal in Maine Could Have Accomplished” from CNET
- “More states strive to make parks, trails accessible to people with disabilities” from Stateline
- “A Guide to the James Webb Telescope’s View of the Universe” from The New York Times
Got a question for the hosts? Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Yeah, why not? |
| 0:02.0 | Yeah, why not? |
| 0:04.0 | H. |
| 0:05.0 | Oohh. |
| 0:06.0 | Hello everyone I'm Kimberly Adams. |
| 0:10.0 | Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense. |
| 0:13.0 | I'm Kyle Rizdahl. Thanks for joining us on this, sorry, checking Wednesday, November 8. |
| 0:18.0 | Sorry. You lose track sometimes. |
| 0:21.0 | It's like that sometimes. It's like that sometimes and this Wednesday we are going to do |
| 0:26.0 | some news we're going to do some smiles the basics and get you all out of here so |
| 0:30.6 | Kai why don't you go first? I will I will this one comes to us courtesy of |
| 0:36.4 | Neil Irwin at Axios formerly of the New York Times and I think actually before that the |
| 0:41.0 | Washington Post sometimes friend of the marketplace program in the afternoon he's Miriam for a while |
| 0:46.0 | Super sharp guy anyway Neil points out in his newsletter today |
| 0:51.0 | a a white paperish thing from the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, which is a big |
| 0:56.8 | think tanky thing affiliated with the Aspen Institute, led by among other |
| 1:00.3 | people Hank Paulson, former Treasury Secretary Secretary. |
| 1:04.8 | Anyway, they're out with a white paper called Building a More Resilient U.S. |
| 1:08.8 | Economy and one of the things that they point out in that white paper is that and I'm just going to read it |
| 1:13.7 | for meals graph here it would take spending cuts or tax increases equivalent to |
| 1:17.7 | $2,400 per American per year to stabilize the national debt. Now about that. Number one, |
| 1:27.2 | interesting that we're talking about stabilizing the national debt instead of |
... |
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