Global Warming: America Has Become a Rogue Climate Nation

With the beginning of the second Donald Trump Presidency in 2024, addressing the reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas  (GHG) emissions which are the main drivers of climate change and global warming, has politically been greatly diminished in the U.S., with President Trump and most of his fellow Republicans in Congress pushing for much greater extraction of fossil fuels, oil, natural gas, and coal, as well as deliberately fighting efforts to expand renewable energy production, namely wind and solar power. President Trump also nixed the incentives to buy electric vehicles, via tax credits. President Trump again for the second time pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, when 194 countries are party to the agreement and its voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

President Trump said at the United Nations in 2025,according to PBS, "This 'climate change,' it's the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion… If you don't get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail."

Given that American voters elected to the Presidency in 2024 a climate change skeptic of the tallest order, it is relevant to review the basic facts and science that explain why human combustion of fossil fuels and its resulting carbon dioxide pollution is truly warming our planet and contributing to climate change. With 2024 achieving the status of the planet’s “warmest year on record” with global average surface temperature of 1.55 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to the World Meteorological Organization, we should also look at what the U.S. should ideally be doing to combat global warming and its resulting effects on climate and whether it should join the other wealthy or large nations around the world in efforts to reduce their GHG emissions.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “We know [global warming] is largely caused by human activities because the key role that carbon dioxide plays in maintaining Earth’s natural greenhouse effect has been understood since the mid-1800s. Unless it is offset by some equally large cooling influence, more atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to warmer surface temperatures. Since 1800, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from about 280 parts per million (ppm) to 410 ppm in 2019. We know from…its rapid increase…that the source of this new carbon dioxide is fossil fuels, and not natural sources like forest fires, volcanoes, or outgassing from the ocean.”

Greenhouse gases warm the planet by trapping heat in our atmosphere, according to Columbia Climate School, “When sunlight reaches Earth, the surface absorbs some of the light’s energy and reradiates it as infrared waves, which we feel as heat…Carbon dioxide…absorbs energy at a variety of wavelengths between 2,000 and 15,000 nanometers — a range that overlaps with that of infrared energy. As CO2 soaks up this infrared energy, it vibrates and re-emits the infrared energy back in all directions. About half of that energy goes out into space, and about half of it returns to Earth as heat, contributing to the ‘greenhouse effect.’”

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contributes: “There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.”

The effects of worsening climate change are seen in larger wildfires, massive floods, stronger monsoon rains, punishing heat waves, stronger tropical cyclones and hurricanes, as well as droughts. Global warming is causing the warming of the oceans, which cover 70 percent of planet Earth and absorb much of the heat produced from global warming, with “the top 2,300 feet of the global ocean [warming] about 1.5°F since 1901,” according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. And global warming is causing the melting of polar ice and glaciers, which can contribute to rising sea levels. According to National Geographic, polar ice melt has raised “average global sea level between four and eight inches (10 and 20 centimeters) in the past hundred years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”  

Humans combusting fossil fuels to produce electricity, power industry, and drive our cars and trucks and their resulting emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is driving this global warming and thus, climate change. 

Globally, Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions  – which include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and some other chemicals – have continued to increase yearly to 53.2 billion tons CO2 equivalent in 2024, according to the European Commission’s EDGAR database.

Carbon Dioxide makes up about 75% of those emissions, while methane makes up 17.3% - and methane has much greater warming potential than CO2.

According to the European Commission’s Edgar database, China, the United States, India, the European Union, Russia and Indonesia are the world's largest GHG emitters. Together they account for 61.8% of global GHG emissions. In 2024 China, India, Russia and Indonesia increased their GHG emissions compared to 2023. Total Global GHG emissions increased by 1.3% compared to 2023.

Total GHG Emissions by Country – European Commission - Edgar 

China              15,536.10 Million Tonnes CO2 equivalent

U.S.                 5,890.99  Million Tonnes CO2 equivalent

India               4,371.17  Million Tonnes CO2 equivalent

EU                    3,164.66 Million Tonnes CO2 equivalent

Russia            2,575.65 Million Tonnes CO2 equivalent

Indonesia      1,323.78 Million Tonnes CO2 equivalent

So, while the U.S. is still a huge emitter of greenhouse gases, the good news is that U.S. GHG emissions have declined steadily since about the year 2007. This is largely due to a turn away from using coal to generate electricity and substituting it with natural gas in highly efficient power generators, which generate considerably less carbon dioxide pollution. That’s because coal contains much more carbon than natural gas and oil.  

However, the U.S. is still one of the leaders in the world in GHG emissions per capita, with GHG emissions of 17.34 tonnes CO2 equivalent per person in 2024, compared to per capita emissions of 7.14 tonnes for the EU, 10.81 tonnes for China, 3.04 tonnes for India, 4.69 tonnes for Indonesia, and 18.02 tonnes for Russia.

However, U.S. responsibility for the current state of global warming is much greater than the table of total GHG emissions above would suggest because carbon dioxide remains in our atmosphere for a very long time – between 5 and 200 years  (though much of it is absorbed by the oceans, which is discussed in this article, Carbon is Forever, in Nature Climate Change) -  so historical U.S. GHG emissions are a very relevant statistic.  The U.S. is the greatest historical emitter of GHGs, releasing more than 509 billion tons CO2 since 1850, or 20% of the total. China is a relatively distant second, with 11%, followed by Russia with 7%, Brazil 5%, Germany 4%, Indonesia 4%, and the UK 3%. 

So, what should be done about our human contribution to global warming, and climate change, through our combustion of fossil fuels?

The Paris Agreement on Climate, entered into force in 2016, aims to “substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to hold the global temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.” 

United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change argues that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heat waves and rainfall.

In the Paris agreement, countries submit their voluntary Nationally Determined Contributions of GHG emissions, which began in 2020.

China, the world’s second largest economy and largest emitter of GHGs, is wholeheartedly committed to the Paris Agreement’s goals and has taken a leadership role in the fight against climate change. China calls Climate Change a “grim challenge facing all mankind”, and asserts, “we must never relax our efforts to tackle climate change.”

China’s goals as laid out in its NDC report states this country of 1.4 billion people will, unlike the current pro-fossil fuel policies of the Trump Administration, heavily invest in wind and solar power to reduce GHG emissions. China “will lower its CO2 emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by over 65% from the 2005 level, increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25%, increase the forest stock volume by 6 billion cubic meters from the 2005 level, and bring its total installed capacity of wind and solar power to over 1.2 billion kW.”

China aims to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

 (From, “China’s Achievements, New Goals and New Measures for Nationally Determined Contributions”)

Carbon neutrality is where a country’s GHG emissions are offset by natural carbon sinks, such as forests, the oceans, and soil, and could also be augmented by carbon-capture technologies. The European Union aims to be carbon-neutral by 2050. 

To achieve these climate goals, China has engaged in massive investment in solar and wind power.  

According to the International Energy Agency, “In 2024 China’s clean energy investment was more than $625 billion, almost doubling since 2015. China also achieved its 2030 wind and solar capacity target in 2024, six years ahead of schedule.”

According to this article in The Guardian, in 2025, “Between January and May, China added 198 GigaWatts of solar and 46 GigaWatts of wind, enough to generate as much electricity as Indonesia or Turkey.”

The European Union, another signatory to the Paris Agreement, has also been heavily investing in wind and solar renewable energy. “In 2024, renewable energy sources accounted for 47.5% of gross electricity consumption in the EU, indicating a 2.1 percentage points increase from 2023,” according to the EU.  38% of those renewable energy sources are wind power, while 23.4% are solar power.

Of the world’s largest emitters of GHGs, India, Russia, and Indonesia also all signed the Paris Agreement, have made commitments to reduce their GHG emissions, and are investing in renewable energy. According to the IEA, “ In 2024, 83% of power sector investment [in India] went to clean energy.”

Despite a Trump Administration openly hostile to renewable energy, “Renewable energy production [in the U.S.] grew by 3% from 2024 to a new record, the fifth consecutive year of growth. Solar and wind both set records for energy production as new generators came online,”according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Still, renewable energy in the U.S. made up only 9 percent of total energy consumed in 2023.

Has the U.S. become a rogue climate nation under President Donald Trump for being the only major economy and one of the largest emitters of GHGs to deny the global warming crisis and to abandon the Paris Agreement? When all other major emitters have joined the climate agreement, acknowledging the scientific reality of global warming and its impact on climate and agreeing to reduce emissions. Did American voters truly desire this abandonment of efforts to reduce GHG emissions in the fight against global warming, and a radical political turn to the encouragement of greater production and use of oil, coal, and natural gas, when they elected Donald Trump President in 2024?

According to a 2025 poll by The University of Chicago and The Associated Press–NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only 52% of respondents think climate change is human-driven, including 35% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats. 47% of respondents think climate change policy is very important (compared to 80% who think healthcare policy and 78% who think the economic policy is very important).  60% think the U.S. should take a more active role in global climate efforts. 41% said they support incentives to purchase electric vehicles. Only 42% of respondents support expanding oil and gas production and only 18% support auctioning off public land for oil drilling.

According to a 2026 Gallup Poll, 64% of respondents think that global warming is caused by pollution from human activities, with 33% thinking the changes in the climate are natural.

These poll numbers suggest that most Americans did not want this radical turn to encouraging greater fossil fuel use, the hostility to renewable energy, or leaving the Paris Agreement. What America needs is a concerted effort by politicians, the news media, and organizations to educate the public about GHG emissions, their contribution to global warming and climate change.  

The NY Times published a guest essay recently, titled “Democrats Don’t Have to Campaign on Climate Change Anymore,” which in my opinion gets its all wrong. While the opinion argues that most Democrat voters already support efforts to mitigate global warming and are solidly in the Democratic camp, campaigning on the issue of climate change is just going to alienate independent and swing voters who prioritize other issues like the economy, affordability, and health insurance over climate change.  But this reasoning ignores the value political candidates can contribute to the public debate on an issue of paramount importance. It’s really the responsibility of these political candidates to educate prospective voters about the U.S.’ contribution to GHG emissions, those emissions' role in causing global warming, the fact that all major emitter countries have joined and committed to the Paris Agreement. Politicians should tell prospective voters that those other countries are making an effort to reduce their GHG emissions, and discuss the fact that the US has become a rogue climate nation for abandoning the Paris Agreement and our responsibility of acknowledging our very significant contribution to global warming.  

With 2024 being the warmest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization, with an average global temperature of 1.55 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the planet has exceeded the warming goal established by the Paris Agreement, which aims to keep warming to 1.5 degrees C. Our world needs to get very serious about reducing GHG emissions to prevent the worst effects of global warming in the years to come and our world and our planet need the United States, the world’s biggest economy, and the 2nd largest emitter of GHGs, to accept the responsibility to join the global effort to do so.

David Fine

Freelance Writer

www.davidfine.org

Raising the Federal Minimum Wage from $7.25 per Hour

The Federal minimum wage of a pathetically meager $7.25 per hour, unchanged since 2009, desperately needs to be raised to reflect our modern economy. While many states have enacted much higher minimum wage laws – Alaska’s minimum wage is $13 per hour, Arizona’s is $15.15 per hour, California’s is $16.90 per hour, Ohio’s is $11 per hour, and New York’s is $17 per hour – some states keep their minimum wage in line with the severely depressed federal minimum wage or have no state minimum wage law. These states are Alabama, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

In April of 2025, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced in the Senate, and Rep. Robert Scott (D-Va.) introduced in the House the Raise the Wage Act which would gradually increase the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour by 2030 (the wage increasing about $1.50 per year). The act would also increase the wages of tipped employees to nearly the level of non-tipped employees and would considerably increase the youth wage and the subminimum wage.

Senator Sanders had the support of 33 colleagues in the Senate and Rep. Scott had the backing of 142 Representatives in the House.

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the enactment of the Raise the Wage Act would “impact 22.24 million workers across the country, or 15% of the U.S. wage-earning workforce. The increases would provide an additional $70 billion annually in wages for the country’s lowest-paid workers, with the average affected worker who works year-round receiving an extra $3,200 per year.”

Such a considerable increase in the federal minimum wage would not only provide much needed additional income to the lowest-wage workers, who struggle to make ends meet and pay for essentials but would also enable teenage workers to save for college or other schooling.

EPI also estimates that this wage increase would affect 8.5 million people aged 20 or older, debunking any suggestion that such a wage increase would largely go to youth workers. EPI estimates that 1.8 million teenagers would benefit.

A 2021 public opinion poll by Harris found that 83% of Americans think the federal minimum wage should be increased, 74% think a person earning the federal minimum wage and working full-time should be able to afford a 1-bedroom apartment, and 59% of respondents think raising the federal minimum wage would have a positive impact on the economy.

According to a 2021 Pew Research Center poll, when a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour was being floated, 62% of respondents were for it, while 38% were opposed. 87% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents supported raising the wage, while 72% of Republicans and Republican-leaners opposed it.

Arguments against raising the federal minimum wage have claimed that doing so destroys jobs and reduces employment among low-skilled workers.  The conservative CATO Institute is opposed to minimum wages.

However, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich points to studies that show that moderate, gradual increases in the minimum wage have almost no impact on employment.

During a time in America where the super-wealthy, the multimillionaires and billionaires, are becoming ever wealthier thanks to a booming stock market and rising property values, shouldn’t our country be giving the lowest-wage workers an income increase?

Raising the federal minimum wage is one means of combatting the surge in wealth inequality our country has seen over the past two decades. 

A recent Gallup poll on the financial situation of Americans reveals that 62% of respondents are worried they will not have enough money for retirement, and 54% are worried they are unable to maintain the standard of living they enjoy. 35% are worried about being able to pay rent, mortgage, or other housing costs.

The income increase that would come from raising the federal minimum wage would put much more spending money in the pockets of the lowest-wage workers and would recirculate through our economy in the form of purchases for necessities and durable goods, boosting America’s Gross Domestic Product, that is, our larger economy. Plus, boosting the federal minimum wage may cause a rippling effect that raises mid-level wages. All in all, a higher, respectable level for the federal minimum wage would benefit American workers and the American economy to a great extent. Democrats should make raising the federal minimum wage a centerpiece in their 2026 midterm election campaigns.

David Fine

www.davidfine.org 

Related articles

Raising the Minimum Wage Would Be an Investment in Growing the Middle Class – the Center for American Progress

Is it Time to Reform the U.S. Supreme Court?

With the Conservative-dominated Supreme Court’s recent gutting of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which will inevitably lead to southern states drawing new Congressional districts to significantly dilute minority voters voting preferences, and probably the eventual loss of several Black Representatives’ seats in the House of Representatives, should this latest undemocratic and potentially racially discriminatory overreach by the Court be met with a movement for Supreme Court reform?   

The Supreme Court wields immense power to invalidate laws enacted by our elected representatives and signed by the President. Its members are appointed for life terms, and new appointments are currently made only because of a Justice’s retirement or death. Justice Clarence Thomas, for one, has been seated on the court for more than 34 years. “For the first 180 years of U.S. history, justices served an average of approximately 15 years. But in the 1970s, the average tenure began to balloon. In recent years, justices have served an average of 26 years,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Indeed, it is entirely arbitrary which political party’s President will have the opportunity to nominate a new justice, and as in the case of President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, opposing party control of the Senate can also prevent a nominated justice from attaining a seat on the Supreme Court. That is, the current composition of the Supreme Court, with its 6-member conservative majority, is the product of an entirely arbitrary and undemocratic system for deciding the court’s members.

“President Donald Trump appointed three justices in four years, whereas Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama each appointed two justices in eight years,” and President Joe Biden appointed one justice in four years, “This wide variation, as well as its impact on the development of American law, is impossible to square with principles ofdemocratic legitimacy,” argues the Brennan Center for Justice. 

The Brennan Center for Justice is advocating for Supreme Court reform – namely, to limit Supreme Court Justices to 18-year terms and to give all Presidents two Supreme Court Justice appointments during a 4-year term.

Its reform plan would have Supreme Court justices become senior justices after their 18-years on the court, where they would still retain certain judicial duties, but not hear current cases before the court unless there was a recusal or vacancy on the court. This way, Supreme Court justices would retain life tenure. Congress has the constitutional power to make such a change.

Supreme Court term limits are supported by a significant majority of Americans, according to polling done between 2020 and 2023 by various pollsters showing between 62% to 75% of those polled supporting term limits.   

The public also has a diminished and partisan view of the Supreme Court. According to a 2025 public opinion poll by Gallup, 52 percent of respondents did not approve of how the Supreme Court is handling its job, and 43 percent feel that the court is too conservative, 17 percent said it’s too liberal, and 36 percent said the court is ‘about right’.   

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the Voting Rights Acts begs the question whether the court is playing too partisan a role as the third branch of government, for the result of its holding will impact Congressional redistricting and the balance of power in Congress. Also, its ruling casts a blind eye to the historical offenses to American liberty and rights of blacks living under Jim Crow in the South, and the racist legacy of that history which likely prevails to some extent in southern states even today.

The Supreme Court majority, in its opinion in Louisiana v. Callais, writes: “[I]n large part because of the Voting Rights Act[,] . . . our Nation has made great strides” in eliminating racial discrimination in voting. Shelby County, 570 U. S., at 548–549. And if, as a result of this progress, it is hard to find pertinent evidence relating to intentional present-day voting discrimination, that is cause for celebration.

Racial discrimination in voting – if you mean going to your polling location and casting a ballot – may be minute or non-existent today, but the potential for racial discrimination in congressional redistricting is a whole different matter, and hiding that under the guise of political gerrymandering when most blacks vote for the Democratic Party would amount to racist gerrymandering by other means.  

The Supreme Court’s recent holding in Louisiana v. Callais essentially invalidates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, whose text is below, emphasis added:

 A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan dissented from the Court’s opinion, joined by justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, an excerpt of which follows, regarding Section 2 as it applies to redistricting:  

The last, and surely the hardest, for just three Terms ago the Court upheld a vote-dilution challenge to a districting map in a case much like this one—preserving Section 2 as a tool to prevent racially discriminatory redistricting. See Allen, 599 U. S., at 17. “[W]e decline to adopt,” the Court said then, “an interpretation of §2 that would revise and reformulate” our “§2 jurisprudence [of] nearly forty years.” Id., at 26. Nothing has changed in the three years since. Yet today, the majority does “revise and reformulate” . . . and destroy. It avails itself again of the tools used before to dismantle the Act: untenable readings of statutory text, made-up and impossible-to-meet evidentiary requirements, disregard for precedent, and disdain for congressional judgment. And in that way it greenlights redistricting plans that will disable minority communities—in Louisiana and across the Nation—from electing, as majority communities can, “representatives of their choice.”§10301(b). What if the districts in which minority citizens exercise voting power are sliced up, and the pieces appended to districts in which they can play no meaningful role? The majority tells us that the inability to make out a Section 2 claim will just be a mark of the Nation’s progress, and therefore “cause for celebration.” Ante, at 31.

I dissent. The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—“one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history.” Shelby County, 570 U. S., at 562 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality. And it has been repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people’s representatives in Congress. Only they have the right to say it is no longer needed—not the Members of this Court. I dissent, then, from this latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.

The idea of Supreme Court reform has attained new heights. President Biden established in his presidential term the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, comprised of a bipartisan group of experts on the Court and the Court reform debate. 

President Biden also authored an OpEd that appeared in the Washington Post where he called for term limits for Supreme Court justices.

The Supreme Court exerts tremendous power as the third branch of government through its power of judicial review but its transformation into a hyper-conservative court is unreflective of the politics of the American people and is solely a product of an undemocratic system of life tenure and totally arbitrary court appointments. The current court’s recent willingness to overrule legal precedents in a variety of cases reveals its partisan, activist character and begs for reform. It’s time to reform the Supreme Court and make it more representative of our democracy.

David Fine

Freelance Writer

www.davidfine.org

 

Related articles

The Supreme Court is Dangerously Broken. Here’s How to Fix It, Time magazine

John Roberts Believes in an America That Doesn’t Exist NY Times opinion

A Progressive Argument for Balancing the Federal Budget

The United States’ national debt has ballooned to $39 trillion this year and interest payments on this massive debt amounted to $970 billion in fiscal year 2025, approaching the amount we spend on our national defense. Our national debt has grown exponentially over the past several years because of runaway deficit spending by Congress and the President. In 2025 the federal deficit was a whopping $1.78 trillion. The federal budget deficit in 2020, during the Coronavirus Pandemic, was $3.1 trillion.

In 2025, the total federal debt amounted to just over 120 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Compare this to 2001 when the national debt was only about 55 percent of U.S. GDP and it was the last time Congress and then-President Bill Clinton balanced the federal budget. 

Members of Congress and Presidents from both parties have embraced massive deficit spending, both for stimulus spending during the Coronavirus Pandemic, as well as for President Trump’s extension of his first term tax cuts in the 2025 Big Beautiful Bill act.

The U.S. Government’s massive borrowing has the potential to raise interest rates and to crowd out private investment. It greatly increases the amount of the budget the government must allocate to paying interest payments, and if the debt became too great as a percentage of GDP, it could present a risk of default – and an economic crisis.

It makes sense for governments to engage in deficit spending during economic crises to apply fiscal stimulus to the economy, increase demand, and boost employment. This is precisely what Nobel Laureate and economist Paul Krugman advocates for in his book End This Depression Now! in response to the very high unemployment that ensued during the Great Recession which followed the 2008 financial crisis. Both President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, with the help of Congress, engaged in substantial fiscal stimulus during the economic freeze of the Coronavirus Pandemic, mailing direct stimulus checks to American citizens and their children on three different occasions. So, while President Obama’s fiscal stimulus in 2009 Professor Krugman found to be woefully insufficient given the size of the U.S. economy, since then both parties have embraced significant fiscal stimulus to address the economic downturn of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

This is possible because, as Professor Krugman notes in his book, that in relation to GDP U.S. debt is not terribly high and the prospect of the U.S. defaulting on its debt is not likely to happen anytime soon. Also, Japan has been maintaining very high debt levels where its debt as of 2023 amounted to 195 percent of GDP, and it has yet to experience a debt crisis.

However, does that mean the U.S. Congress and the President should continue to pursue policies that result in one to two trillion dollars more government debt every year when the economy is stable, unemployment is low, and GDP is growing at 2 percent? 

Professor Krugman quotes economist John Maynard Keynes as stating, “The boom, not the slump, is the time for austerity,” referring to government budgets. And Professor Krugman points out in the book that after the very large government deficits incurred during World War II, the U.S. decreased the debt in relation to GDP in the ensuing decade by balancing its budget and allowing robust economic growth to considerably increase the size of the U.S. economy.

There is not much interest among Democrats, liberals or progressives for fiscal restraint during good economic times, however.

During these relatively good economic times, Congress and Presidents have been being downright fiscally irresponsible. Much smarter federal fiscal policy by the U.S. Government would be to balance or nearly balance the federal budget during relatively stable or good economic times through a combination of reducing spending and raising taxes. Then our country would be on solid financial footing if ever again confronted by an economic recession or depression that would necessitate a return to deficit and stimulus spending.

That said, the national debt is not all bad. Much of the national debt, $19.9 trillion in 2025, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, is held domestically, with $4.4 trillion in mutual funds and $973 billion in pension funds, so a portion of debt payments are going into Americans’ pockets and retirement accounts, circulating throughout our economy.

A progressive argument for balancing the federal budget while retaining or expanding progressive priorities – reducing health insurance costs and providing greater health insurance access for Americans, providing free or reduced-cost childcare, providing paid family and medical leave, and fighting climate change and pollution by investing in clean, renewable energy – would consider raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, whose wealth has grown exponentially over the past decade. Indeed, with the massive growth of wealth inequality in this country, it’s as though America now harbors an Oligarchy of super-wealthy individuals. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has recently proposed an Ultra-Millionaire Wealth Tax to make America’s multi-millionaires and billionaires, the Oligarchs, who have reaped the benefits of a rising stock market and skyrocketing property values, pay their fair share in taxes. Senator Warren points out that economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman note that the families in the top 0.1% are projected to owe only 3.2% of their wealth in federal, state, and local taxes this year, while the bottom 99% are projected to owe 7.2%.

Senator Warren’s wealth tax proposal would tax households with a net worth of $50 million or more. Households would pay an annual 2% tax on every dollar of net worth above $50 million and a 6% tax on every dollar of net worth above $1 billion. This wealth tax is estimated to bring in $375 billion a year.

In addition to a wealth tax, raising the federal corporate tax from 21 percent and closing the corporate tax loopholes which enabled a considerable number of corporations to pay no federal tax in 2025 (88 to be specific, listed in this report), according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, would raise more needed revenue. According to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “We have a [corporate] tax code that enables many of the country’s largest corporations, like Amazon, General Motors, Netflix, and Chevron, to make billions in profits while paying nothing at all in taxes year after year.”

Another Sanders suggestion is that we tax long-term capital gains from the sale of stock or other assets at the same level as we tax income. Currently, short-term capital gains, assets held for less than 1 year, are taxed according to your income bracket. But long-term capital gains, any capital held for more than 1 year, are taxed 0 percent, 15 percent, and 20 percent depending on your income level. 

Those taxes could be raised 5 percent across the board, which would still provide a discount over taxing long-term capital gains as income and would bring in much needed revenue.  Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Representative Don Beyer (D-Va.) have introduced their Millionaires Surtax Act, which would, in addition to adding a 10-point surtax to incomes over $1 million (for individuals), also apply to long-term capital gains.

In addition to these tax increase proposals (which avoid increasing taxes on the lower, middle and upper-middle classes), a progressive argument for balancing the federal budget would also consider reducing defense spending, which amounted to a $839.2 billion primary authorization, $152.3 billion for the Pentagon and $3.9 billion for Department of Energy nuclear weapons activities in 2026. Thus, U.S. total defense spending for 2026 amounted to $1.05 trillion.  The U.S. already has the largest military in the world, and we spend more on defense than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, France, and Japan combined.  

Perhaps in part because of our enormous military power, our current President has embarked on an aggressive, unprovoked, and unpopular war against Iran, with 54% of respondents to a NBC News Decision Desk Poll stating they disapprove of President Trump’s handling of the war  against Iran. President Trump also recently made an intemperate request in his 2027 budget for a $500 billion increase in defense spending.

Massively increasing defense spending, at the potential expense of vital benefits like Medicare and Medicaid, is the wrong path for our country. Instead, partly given the burgeoning national debt and federal deficit, the U.S. should change its defense policy to take advantage of a ‘Peace Dividend’ and bring our defense budget into some measure of sanity.  According to this article in by Lawrence Korb in The National Interest, the U.S. can significantly reduce its defense spending while not sacrificing its national security. For one, given the potential threats of China and Russia, the U.S. maintains powerful military alliances in addition to its own dominant military – NATO and the QUAD, which includes Japan, India, and Australia in the pacific. And, what are the real chances of a direct military conflict between the U.S. and China or Russia, two nuclear powers?  This writer deems those chances very unlikely.

Other cuts to federal spending would still need to be made to bring our federal budget into balance. Eliminating federal subsidies to fossil fuel development could save about $4 billion per year, according to a proposal from the Brookings Budget Book. Other cost savings opportunities should be investigated, including reforms to Medicare.

A runaway federal deficit and national debt creating growing interest payments that rival the amount our government spends yearly on defense is not a fiscally healthy path to be on. Democrats, liberals and progressives need to acknowledge that balancing the federal budget during stable or good economic times should be a priority and that a combination of raising taxes and cutting federal spending is necessary for our country’s fiscal health.  

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David Fine is a Freelance Writer

www.davidfine.org

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