AGORA

Agora debate ·

US borrowing costs hit highest level in decades

The question

Should the US government cut spending to bring borrowing costs down?

Yes 91%No 9%

43 players picked a side before playing.

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The best arguments

Written by Agora players and ranked by Agora's AI reasoning score. Shown without names.

  • The more money put into bonds will drive up the prices of bonds, this will then push yields down and lowering borrowing costs for Americans.

    A player · strong argument

  • Cuts to government spending translate to lower costs for the people by exactly the mechanisms I described - if the government can finally get its budget balanced, it won’t have to spend such an exorbitant amount of its budget on interest payments ($970 billion in 2025, probably over $1 trillion this year). That means the taxpayers save that much money.

    A player · strong argument

  • Unfortunately there is no magic wand that can magically decrease borrowing costs right now. And even if there was (like changing the rates), that would alleviate families in the short term, while in the long term the rates would be worse and families a few years down the line would be in a far more difficult situation. By cutting costs now, we start a chain reaction that eventually will result in a better economy, while also reducing the tax burden and decreasing government bloat.

    A player · decent argument

  • The largest factors in changing interest rates are the Fed's policy and economic outlook. The problem with the Fed "artificially" lowering interest rates, that is changing the rate in such a way that does not impact economic outlook, is that to do so, the Fed must inject money into the economy through printing money, and increasing money supply increases inflation. Increasing inflation in an already recessionary period is not good. Thus, the only way to truly address bad rates is to change the economic outlook. The US should get out of the war with Iran, somehow secure the strait or another route, slow foreign aid, and act more as an isolationist country in foreign policy (not trade). This would reduce spending, which is important, but would also reduce the risk of investing by lowering premiums because there would be more public trust in the ability of the government to pay back loans. Thus, the most impactful action in reducing interest rates is to get out of wars of attrition, beca

    A player · decent argument

  • Cuts will give us more money to pay off our increasing national debt. If we don’t start cutting back now our debts will cripple the next generation financially

    A player · decent argument

  • They materialized based off supply and demand. The more the government spends, the higher demand is. As demand diminishes supply increases which naturally cause prices to fall

    A player · decent argument

  • The borrowing costs are high right now but with the government spending less which would mean borrowing less then the borrowing costs would go down. This helps families afford groceries because when borrowing costs go down most everything goes down with it. These ongoing efforts help families afford groceries because if we are able to bring down borrowing by spending less than grocery prices,business loans, and other loans/expenses will go down too. Reduced borrowing leads to lower borrowing costs leading to cheaper groceries for families.

    A player · decent argument

  • Because people don’t need to borrow money when things are affordable. There is a direct correlation between prices and borrowing rates.

    A player · weak argument

In this game

  1. What pushes Treasury yields up?
  2. Two truths and a lie. Click the lie.
  3. Which graph of treasury yield rises is real?
  4. Immersive Command Mode
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