How is the United States able to give billions to other countries when we are trillions in debt and how does it get approved?

Question

How is the United States able to give billions to other countries when we are trillions in debt and how does it get approved?

In: Economics

Answer 1

It’s hard for human to have a sense of scale with this kind of numbers, it can all seem big and impressive. So I’ll ratio it to a scale easier to understand. The US Budget is 610 Billions while US debt is 34.47 Trillions. If we scale that down to the average salary in the US.

You are average Joe and you make 60 thousand per year. You have a mortgage on an house of 339 thousand dollars and you are helping your friend by sending him a couple a few thousand dollar.

Now, this example is not totally right, because the government doesn’t taxes their own income so Average Joe here would have access to their whole 60 thousand salary and not just 40ish thousand like a normal citizen. In addition, since the US is a government and a stable one, their debt have a low interest rate compared to anything a normal citizen would be able to get.