People will complain about the debt ceiling -- granted, it's kinda dumb -- but it's also the only speed bump left to unlimited money printing.
The core issue is the size of the debt. The US is constantly paying off old debt with new debt. Except this year the cost of those funds quadrupled -- which means, even more debt.
If interest rates stay high for several years, our national debt will balloon out of control. At a point we'll have no money left for anything but interest on the debt, or we'll just print so much money to pay interest on our national debt inflation will come back with a vengeance.
At some point I'd love to see a grand bargain where we 1) raise taxes a bit and 2) lower spending a bit. I'm not holding my breath...
We know how to reduce the deficit: raise taxes on the rich. It's not rocket appliances. It's just a complete non-starter given the current GOP. The people screaming the loudest about the deficit are the same people preventing any real steps to fix it.
Wait, I don't believe that at all, for the following reasons:
1. The opposite hasn't been true. We have seen two dramatic tax cuts in recent history which absolutely did not lead to reduced spending.
2. The majority of federal spending is for healthcare or social security. Spending in these areas is somewhat hard to change, even with the political will. It's certainly damn near impossible to decrease such spending; it would immediately cause massive hardship for the most vulnerable people in our society (and probably riots riots).
3. The U.S. has run a surplus before and somehow didn't immediately bet it all on the ponies.
Perhaps our modern politics are so dysfunctional that there is no way out.