Dumbass thinks the government gives credit scores. It does not. And the only reason anyone knows anything about their score is because government requires the lending industry to tell us.
Which, adding on to your thought, the US government does do. It just also takes on even more debt at the same time because lenders view the US government as a trustworthy borrower.
National debt is completely different than your personal debt.
Personal debt is when you buy a TV with your credit card. National debt is when a country invests into a highway or opens another school.
A closer example is when you take on a personal debt to fund a new business restaurant. You’re still in debt but you’re making money and employing people.
While opening a business is closer to the situation than personal debt the analogy still breaks down here. The state controls the size of the money supply itself as well. It creates money through issuance of debt/bonds, and can get rid of it it via taxes and interest payments on the debt. Through the federal reserve it controls that as well. And the job of government isn’t to generate a profit. There’s just no good perfect analogy. A country should be carrying a debt load to some degree, it’s the ratio of debt to the size of the economy that’s important and could indicate when it’s getting to an unhealthy level. The national debt will never be paid off, and you’d never want it to be. Andrew Jackson found this out the hard way, very ironic he got put on money eventually given his hatred of central banks.
US debt to gdp ratio is likely starting to get too high though and probably needs to be reined back some. Not a problem unique to the US after a lot of spending to prop things up during the pandemic. Best way to bring it under control is unwinding the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and increasing taxes on corporations, capital gains, and billionaires.
Credit score is based on things which nominally correlate with financial trustworthiness (or something like that).
This is a very big improvement over a system where loans are denied because a racist bank employee doesn’t like you. It is definitely not a perfect system, and we should definitely strive to make it better, but the concept isn’t (IMHO) a bad one.
Also, as others pointed out, personal and national debt are…different.
The government doesn’t give you a credit score, 3 for-profit companies give you a credit score. In fact, a government issued credit score would be an improvement, they would report it for free instead of charging you if you check more than once a year. It would force more transparency into the financial sector and would undermine the 3 companies. If it ever comes up on the ballot (it won’t), you should vote for it.
Social Credit is better than credit score. What you’re scared of is whos doing the reporting. Is life more fair when opportunities are giving based on what kind of person you are or how much money you have?
Oh, it’s not the country. It’s a small group of corporations aggregating, selling and losing your private data without your consent or opt-in, in order to determine how likely you are to keep your word and pay back a loan.
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