The Federal Debt Crisis

This is the first part of a two-part post about the U.S. Federal debt and fair taxation.  I will try to keep this part brief.  

Like a slow-moving train wreck, the United States is in a government debt crisis.   The debt crisis has been developing since the Reagan administration of the 1980s.  Federal debt as a percentage of GDP ranged between 30% and 40% from 1970 to about 1985.  Debt increased from 1985 to 1992 before settling in a range between 50% and 70% of GDP.  A sharp increase occurred in 2009-2010 after the banking crisis of 2009, establishing another plateau about 105% of GDP from 2010 to 2019.  Following the Covid pandemic, debt/GDP increased again to a new plateau of about 125% of GDP. 

Image Credit: CDCData.com

The reasons for the increasing debt are clear.  Debt began rising during the Reagan administration due to deliberate policy choices regarding taxation.  Under Reagan, Republicans enacted a series of tax cuts intended to limit the size of government by limiting government funding.  The strategy was called “starve the beast”.  By the end of Reagan’s presidency, however, deficit spending resumed its upward trajectory, driven by higher military spending and lower taxes.  President G.H.W. Bush negotiated a plan with Democratic congressional leaders to restore a balanced Federal budget, but was stymied by members of his own party, led by Newt Gingrich.  During the Clinton administration, moderate tax increases briefly reversed the trend of increasing debt, but were in turn reversed by more tax cuts during the G.W. Bush administration.  Still, overall, increasing debt was roughly matched to increasing GDP until the financial crisis of 2009.  The government then embarked on a massive spending program to avoid economic collapse, driving debt/GDP to over 100%.  A relative plateau of about 105% debt/GDP continued, despite a new Republican tax cut in 2017.  In 2020, the Covid pandemic caused another major economic disruption, and the government launched more spending to mitigate the economic consequences of the disaster.  The Payroll Protection Program enacted under President Trump, largely a handout to businesses and employers, was nearly one trillion dollars alone.  Debt/GDP took another step change, to about 125%.  Stimulus spending under President Trump in the CARES Act and the PPP totaled about $3.1 trillion.  Early in his presidency, President Biden followed with the family-oriented American Rescue Plan Act, which added $1.9 trillion in non-productive spending.  Unlike the later Infrastructure Act or climate-oriented Inflation Reduction Act, there was no increased productivity associated with CARES, PPP and ARPA.  The stimulus spending prevented a deeper recession by increasing liquidity in the economy, but contributed to inflation and worsened the debt-to-GDP ratio.

Measures of Government Debt
There are two different measures of Federal debt, and economists are divided in terms of which figure is more significant.  The Treasury Department reports Debt Held by the Public in 2024 at $28.2 trillion (T), exactly equal to forecast GDP for the year.  Treasury also reports Intragovernmental Debt of $7.1 T, for a Total Public Debt of $35.3 T, or 125% of GDP.  (Intragovernmental Debt largely consists of holdings in the Social Security Trust Fund which have been loaned to the Treasury and spent.)  The chart above, from ceicdata.com, uses the broader measure of government debt.  By contrast, in an opinion piece, Penn-Wharton Business School uses Debt Held by the Public as its measure of federal debt, disregarding Intragovernmental Debt.  I’m skeptical of this approach, because intragovernmental debt has very real obligations attached to it, and defaulting on intragovernmental debt would necessarily default on those obligations (i.e., social security payments).  That’s politically untenable, and isn’t going to happen.

Another element of government debt is debt issued by state and local governments.  This debt is generally ignored in discussions of government debt, but it also has an impact on the economy.  In the United States, many government functions are performed by the states rather than the federal government.  This is in contrast to the majority of other developed countries.  The difference can be seen in taxation statistics from the OECD, where the United States is an outlier in terms of Federal taxation.  US Federal taxation is about 50% of the OECD average.  Federal-level taxation is not directly comparable between the USA and other OECD countries, because in the USA, a number of government functions and the associated taxation are performed by the states.  But when looking at total taxation, the United States is still low, at about 75% of the OECD average, and among the lowest-taxed of the 38 OECD countries.  

So, in the United States, figures for government debt should include debt issued by state governments.  The most recent estimate of state & local debt I could find was for 2021, at $3.3 T.  In total, then, including intragovernmental debt and state debt, government in the United States has issued about $38.6 T in debt obligations.  This places the US debt/GDP ratio at about 135%.  

Why Does Debt/GDP Matter?
A higher debt/GDP ratio increases the cost of running the government, increases the risk of default, and impairs the economy.  Interest payments add to the cost of providing government services, and high payments may be difficult to maintain in the event of an economic crisis.  

At high levels of debt to GDP,  government borrowing consumes capital available for private lending.  This limits investment in business opportunities, home-buying and personal consumption.  High levels of debt impair economic activity and growth.  An economic model by the World Bank identified a debt-to-GDP ratio of 77% as a tipping point, with progressive impairment to economic growth for debt above that level.  According to the model, at debt/GDP of 100%, U.S. GDP growth is already impaired by 0.4%.  

For about a century, US government debt has been generally regarded as the safest in the world, although that perception is gradually changing.  Thirty years ago, US government bonds were presumed to be a “zero-risk” investment for the purpose of theoretical calculations of investment risk and return.  But in 2011, investment rating companies began gradually cutting the debt rating and outlook on US Treasury obligations.  All rating agencies now attribute risk to US bonds.  Egan-Jones, Standard & Poor and Fitch currently rate US Treasuries below a triple-A rating, while Moody’s and Dominion have a negative outlook on their ratings.

A lower debt rating means paying higher interest rates.  For decades, U.S. taxpayers have benefited from borrowing money at minimal interest rates, allowing the government to build infrastructure, pay for defense, improve social programs, and make society better without raising taxes.  But as the debt rises, interest rates will rise as well, compounding the problem of repayment for future taxpayers.

Rising debt implies rising interest payments, placing pressure on the Federal budget.  The Treasury reports, “As of August 2024 it costs $1049 billion to maintain the debt, which is 17% of the total federal spending in fiscal year 2024.”  A large debt increases the burden on taxpayers without providing additional government services.  We are teetering on a point where paying down the debt may become difficult or impossible without invoking inflation or some other means of reducing debt by cheating the bond-holders.  

Future Outlook
Our current budget trajectory is unsustainable, which is not seriously recognized by either political party.  A 2023 article on the Wharton Business School  website states: “We estimate that the U.S. debt held by the public cannot exceed about 200 percent of GDP…Under current policy, the United States has about 20 years for corrective action after which no amount of future tax increases or spending cuts could avoid the government defaulting on its debt whether explicitly or implicitly (i.e., debt monetization producing significant inflation).”  The 2024 budget deficit is $1.8 trillion; the CBO estimates that under current policies, the deficit will increase to $2.9 trillion in a decade.   The Wharton article contains tables showing expected future debt-to-GDP ratios under a range of interest rate assumption.  In all cases, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 200% within twenty years.

President Trump, in his second term, has asked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to develop plans to improve government efficiency and lower government spending.  It remains to be seen how much spending can be reduced, and how much Congress will resist spending cuts to currently approved programs.  My suspicion is that actual reductions in spending will be trivial compared to the size of the deficit.  Further, Donald Trump has promised to lower taxes, and cancel the resumption of taxes scheduled under the Tax Reduction Act of 2017.  These tax cuts will only increase the economic damage due to our high debt level, increase the risk of default and accelerate the date on which the debt produces an American economic collapse.  

It is worth noting that both Federal and total U.S. taxes, as a percentage of GDP, are among the lowest in the industrialized world.  Benchmarking according to other western industrialized countries, our inability to balance taxation and spending in the Federal budget is primarily a result of low taxes, not excessive spending.  We already tax payrolls, personal income and corporate income, but there is a category of economic activity which is entirely untaxed – unrealized capital gains.  Enacting a tax on unrealized capital gains would help greatly to balance our spending and revenue.  That will be the subject of my next post on Federal debt and taxation.
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References
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_credit-rating_downgrades
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/rating
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-to-GDP_ratio

https://www.pandemicoversight.gov/data-interactive-tools/data-stories/6.4-billion-in-pandemic-funding-was-received-by-recipients-in-foreign-countries-See-the-details

Total pandemic spending  $5 T
https://www.usaspending.gov/disaster/covid-19

Total pandemic spending $4.6 T
https://www.pandemicoversight.gov/about-us/pandemic-relief-program-laws

Trump Pandemic Spending
Total pandemic spending under President Trump was about $3.0 trillion.
Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act,
March 2020;  $8.3 B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_Preparedness_and_Response_Supplemental_Appropriations_Act,_2020
Families First Coronavirus Response Act;  April 2020
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Families_First_Coronavirus_Response_Act
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-families-first-coronavirus-response-act-summary-of-key-provisions/   $3.471 B
https://www.pandemicoversight.gov/about-us/pandemic-relief-program-laws  $15.4 B
https://www.cms.gov/files/document/accounting-federal-covid-expenditures-national-health-expenditure-accounts.pdf   $192 M
The CARES Act, passed under President Trump in March 2020 cost  $2.2 trillion. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARES_Act
Estimates for spending reported for the Payroll Protection Program and Health Care Act (April 2020) vary widely, from $484 billion to $953 billion.  Presumably the higher figures represent later estimates and better represent the full cost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paycheck_Protection_Program_and_Health_Care_Enhancement_Act
PPP $484 B
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.36.2.55
PPP  April 2020     $800 B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paycheck_Protection_Program
PPP     $953 B

Biden Pandemic Spending
The American Rescue Plan, passed under Biden, cost about $1.9 trillion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Rescue_Plan_Act_of_2021

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
Federal spending in 2023 was $6.1 T, compared to $4.4 T in tax revenue, for a deficit of $1.7 T, or 38% of tax revenues.
https://www.cbo.gov/topics/taxes
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ap_17_receipts_fy2024.pdf
Federal tax revenue for 2024 are forecast to be $5.0 T (White House) or $4.85 T (CBO).
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59946
Federal spending for 2024 is estimated at $6.5 T, for a deficit of $1.5 T. 

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2023/10/6/when-does-federal-debt-reach-unsustainable-levels
Penn-Wharton Business School, U. of Penn., Budget Model website, Jagadeesh Gokhale and Kent Smetters. Mariko Paulson, 2023
“We estimate that the U.S. debt held by the public cannot exceed about 200 percent of GDP.”
“Under current policy, the United States has about 20 years for corrective action after which no amount of future tax increases or spending cuts could avoid the government defaulting on its debt whether explicitly or implicitly (i.e., debt monetization producing significant inflation).”
“What is important is that a large broad-based future corrective change in fiscal policy happens in any form to stabilize the debt-GDP ratio, and that such a correction action is anticipated by financial markets. Otherwise, forward-looking financial markets would unravel much sooner…to cause a sovereign debt crisis.”
Penn-Wharton uses debt held by the public as its measure of federal debt, disregarding intragovernmental debt.  I’m skeptical of this approach, because intragovernmental debt has very real obligations attached to it, and defaulting on intragovernmental debt would necessarily default on those obligations (i.e., social security payments). 

https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2020/october/debt-gdp-ratio-how-high-too-high-it-depends
This St. Louis Fed blog article uses total Federal debt to GDP as its measure of indebtedness, but doesn’t specify any measures of when debt is too high.  The answer seems to be “it depends” on various institutions.  Alternatives to hard default are presented, but each of these cause other economic disruption.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/debtgdpratio.asp
“World Population Review has reported that countries whose debt-to-GDP ratios exceed 77% for prolonged periods experience significant slowdowns in economic growth.”
The U.S. has had a debt-to-GDP of more than 77% since Q1 2009. The U.S.’s highest debt-to-GDP ratio before that year was 106% in 1946 at the end of World War II.”

https://www.thebalancemoney.com/current-u-s-federal-budget-deficit-3305783
“For every percentage point of debt that exceeds the 77% tipping point, the annual real GDP growth rate of a developed economy will be reduced by .017 percentage points for each 1% the debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds the tipping point.”
Reference:  World Bank Group. "Finding the Tipping Point - When Sovereign Debt Turns Bad."

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny
Debt held by the public -- $28.2 T
Intragovernmental debt -- $7.1 T
Total Public Debt – $35.3 T

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp
US 2023 GDP -- $27.4 T

https://www.statista.com/statistics/216985/forecast-of-us-gross-domestic-product/
US forecast 2024 GDP -- $28.2T

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/government-debt--of-nominal-gdp
chart of Federal Debt as percent of GDP

https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/gov-finances/tables/2021/2021alfinsummarybrief.pdf
State and Local debt was $3.3 T in 2021.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/312660/us-state-and-local-government-debt-outstanding-by-state/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/217500/revenues-from-social-insurance-tax-and-forecast-in-the-us/
Revenue from payroll taxes in the United States amounted to about 1.61 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023.  Payroll taxes are increasing at about 4% per year.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/216928/us-government-revenues-by-category/
Individual income taxes $2.176 trillion; payroll taxes $1.614 trillion; corporate income taxes 0.420 trillion; other 0.229 trillion.    Total 4.44 trillion in federal revenue.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
In fiscal year (FY) 2023, the government spent $6.13 trillion, which was more than it collected (revenue), resulting in a deficit.

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/taxation/data/revenue-statistics/comparative-tables_data-00262-en?parent=http%3A%2F%2Finstance.metastore.ingenta.com%2Fcontent%2Fcollection%2Ftax-data-en
https://data-explorer.oecd.org/vis
OECD data tables.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny
Federal debt held by the public is $28.3 trillion; total Federal debt, including intragovernmental debt, is $35.3 trillion.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/188105/annual-gdp-of-the-united-states-since-1990/
2023 US GDP is $27.4 trillion.

2024 Presidential Election Post-Mortem

Eight years ago I published two reviews of the Democratic loss in the 2016 Presidential election. 
https://debatablypolitical.blogspot.com/2017/02/hard-lessons-for-democrats.html
https://debatablypolitical.blogspot.com/2016/12/willful-self-destruction-democratic.html

This post is a review of the Democratic loss in the 2024 election.  As I wrote in 2016, this was a winnable election.  In my 2016 review, I placed most of the blame for the loss on Democrats' choice of a flawed candidate, Hillary Clinton.  With this loss, I recognize that opposition to Democrats' vision and political brand is stronger than I realized before.  It is clear also that ideological opposition to Democrats has grown, across the entire political spectrum during the past eight years.  This review divides issues into external factors, unforced errors, strategic failures and systemic problems within the party.  

Donald Trump is an odious candidate, a convicted felon, a adjudicated sexual offender, a serial liar and cheat, a thief of secret documents, organizer of the attack on the Capitol and was roundly condemned as unfit for office by his highest former advisors.  And yet he won.  If Republicans ran a candidate who was actually likable, the election would be a Republican landslide.  Democrats need to solve their systematic problems, and find solutions for right-wing propaganda and the loss of public trust. 

It seems to me that the Harris campaign suffered a death from a thousand cuts.  No single factor seems apparent as the predominant factor in the election loss.  There are lots of clear factors which contributed to the outcome.  Predictably, there’s finger-pointing, with folks on the far-left saying that Harris moved too far to the center, and moderates saying that she was too far left.  I think she lost voters at both ends of the Democratic spectrum compared to Biden.  

If I had to pick a single most important factor, I think Biden’s weapons sent to Israel, and Harris’ support of that policy hurt her the most.  Both of them truly underestimated younger Democrats' anger at that decision.  But lots of other factors were in play.  There were lots of unforced errors, beginning with Biden’s decision to run.  

Harris pinned her campaign on the idea that she was the only alternative to Trump, and everything bad about him.  That was true, but it wasn’t enough to get Republicans to vote for her.  Instead, they simply didn’t vote for president.  And lots of young, minority and leftist Democrats voted for Jill Stein or stayed home.  There was a university precinct in Michigan where Jill Stein pulled 20% of the vote.  And so, Trump is president.

Democrats need to address the main problems, which I listed under “Systemic Problems”.  Democrats have a strongly negative image for many Americans.  Most of that has been 40 years of negative propaganda, from Reagan, Gingrich, Rove and Murdoch, but parts of the negative reputation have been well-earned.  Examples include the grift and arrogance of Hillary Clinton, unfair practices in running the party, false-flag campaign spending, and indifference to government debt all give the party a bad name and lose votes in the long term.

On the other hand, Muslim leaders who talked to Trump and convinced their communities to vote for him are already feeling deceived.  Really?  Trump cheated everyone he ever had a relationship with for his entire life.  And moderate Republicans are shocked at the cabinet nominations.  Same; what did they expect??  They saw how Trump operates in his first term.  Did they think they could control him in the second?

Truthfully, I thought that the Heritage Foundation would be calling the shots in the second term.  I was mistaken.  Clearly, they are not.  Trump is the same as he ever was.  No one is ever his partner, only his servant.  He will abuse and humiliate everyone he works with until they understand that.

So here is my bullet-pointed post-mortem of Harris’ loss.

External Circumstances

1)    Global inflation.
Experts attribute the inflation spike to pandemic supply chain disruptions, and stimulus spending in both the Trump & Biden administrations.  Stimulus spending under Trump exceeded spending under Biden, and the Fed was slow to act.  But Biden got blamed.
2)    Israeli-Palestinian War.
3)    Ukrainian-Russian War.
4)    Record high stock market – a positive for Harris, but not enough.

Systemic Problems

1)    Unchecked right-wing propaganda on podcasts, television, radio, and social media.
2)    Russian misinformation and disruption campaign.
3)    Four-decades of wage stagnation relative to GDP.
4)    Decades of disproportionate cost increases for housing, secondary education, and health care.
5)    Emergence of oligarch class controlling media, with intertwined business and political influences and vulnerabilities.  Increase in oligarch-controlled social media and traditional media as a political force.
6)    Decline of traditional news media.
7)    Rising distrust of Democrats, populism, rejection of science, higher education, and expertise.
8)    Trend of decreasing support for Democrats among working-class, minority and younger voters.
9)    Remaining bigotry among some voters toward people of color.
10)    Remaining belief among some voters that women are not aggressive enough to be president.
11)    Increasing strength of Christian nationalism as a movement.

Unforced Errors

1)    Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act added $1.9 trillion of economic stimulus spending to the existing $3.0 trillion of stimulus spending enacted under President Trump.  Although smaller than the Trump era CARES Act and Payroll Protection Program (PPP), Biden’s program was additional fuel for inflation.  Voters apparently didn’t credit Biden for the checks, but blamed him for the inflation.
2)    Biden’s decision to run, contrary to his earlier promise to be a one-term president, and his late decision to withdraw from the race.
3)    Biden’s decision to make a trip to Europe before the debate, and participate in the most important event of his career while jet-lagged.
4)    Biden’s decision to provide weapons to Israel during Gaza Offensive
5)    Biden’s decision to limit the quality, quantity, timing and limit the use of military aid to Ukraine.  By doing this, Biden did what Tim Snyder called “Obeying in Advance” in his book “On Tyranny”.  I called it drawing Putin’s red lines for him.  Biden’s hesitancy on Ukraine may not have cost as many votes as Gaza, but it did cost some votes.
6)    Biden's failure to to recognize or take action on snowballing government debt.  Government debt held by the public is now near 100% of GDP, which is widely regarded as a hazard to the economy.  Annual interest on the debt crossed one trillion dollars under Biden, and now represents 17% of Federal spending.
7)    Harris' statement that “She would have done nothing different” from Biden during his tenure.

A. Harris missed the opportunity to distance herself from Biden’s support for Israel.
B.  Harris missed the opportunity to distance herself from inflationary stimulus spending.  All she needed to say was that the spending had avoided a recession, but that it had been overdone, and future spending should be more careful.  It would have cost nothing to admit a mistake, and would have gained credibility.

8)    Democrats allowed Republicans to dictate the framing of the election on immigration and inflation.  Democrats should have shifted the discussion to blaming Republicans on wages.
9)    Harris did not put forward a vision.  “We won’t go back!!” is a nice slogan, and “I’m from the middle class” is nice for voter-candidate identification, but that’s all there was.  I cannot think of a single other thing that she said.  

Values, Vision and Policies

A proper campaign should establish values: “I have empathy for those who are having difficulty; I will tell the truth; I believe in providing equal opportunity to have prosperity; and I believe in our responsibility to leave a better world for future generations”  
The campaign should proceed from values to a vision: “Our society has failed our younger generation.  The door to prosperity has been closed, and few of our young people have achieved the American dream.  I will work to enable younger generations to earn and achieve prosperity.”  (I would replace the term “middle class”, and replace it with “younger generation”.  To people from the ages of 18 to 45, “middle class” describes their parents, and their parents’ rust-belt industrial jobs.  They are working in a different economy, and do not think of themselves as “middle class”.
The vision should help focus policy objectives.  I.e., "We will work to make housing more accessible and affordable.  We will see that wages, which have stagnated for 40 years, will rise as a share of national productivity.   We will reduce the cost of health care.  We will reduce the cost of a college education.  We will make child care more affordable.  We will make transportation more affordable and convenient.  We will restore prosperity in America."

Poorly Executed and Unsuccessful Strategy

1)     Harris tacked hard to the right to win moderate Republican voters, especially in the closing six weeks of the campaign.  Harris’ core message was basically, “Trump is a terrible person and a disaster for democracy and women’s rights, and I am the only alternative.”  Harris emphasized this core message by campaigning with Liz Cheney.  (Republican Adam Kinzinger says, “I am a conservative, but Liz Cheney makes me look like a flaming liberal.”)  This was not a message designed to win far-left voters.  Harris’ strategy for winning the election rested entirely on converting moderate Republicans.  But from anecdotal conversations, statements from prominent moderate Republicans (Lisa Murkowski, G.S. Bush, etc.)  few moderate Republicans could force themselves to vote for a Democrat, regardless of how bad Trump was.  Moderate Republicans simply stayed home and so did anti-Israel Democrats.  
2)    Although Harris’ campaign depended on flipping moderate Republicans, she did not campaign in Republican areas of any swing state.  Instead, she paraded Liz Chaney around in Democratic strongholds, where Cheney was not an asset.  Harris needed to campaign with Cheney in rural Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania Republican strongholds.

Democratic Problems

1)    Sadly, nothing has been done about the systematic problems that I listed in my post "Hard Lessons for Democrats" in 2016.  Losing this election is a manifestation of that failure.
2)    Democratic leadership is old and out-of-touch.  In 2016, I complained that all of the Democratic leaders were too old.  Now, little has changed, but they are eight years older.   Elizabeth Warren is 75.  Nancy Pelosi is 84.  Chuck Schumer is 73.  Nearly 40 percent of Democratic Senators are over 70, and over two-thirds are over 60.  In the House, 23 percent are over 70, and 46 percent are over 60.  Hakeem Jeffries is 54 – we need more like him in leadership positions. Elderly Democratic leaders (over the age of 72) MUST shuffle off the stage and make room for younger politicians.
Biden’s age partly accounts for his misjudgment in supporting Israel through the Gaza invasion.  A younger Democrat would have been more in touch with the party’s base and younger voters.  If Democratic leaders had attended a meeting of Young Democrats, they would have seen training on decolonization, and understood the impact of supporting the Israeli war against Gaza.
3)    The national Democratic Party organization is isolated and unreachable by the rank-and-file.
4)    The national Democratic Party organization makes stupid decisions for tactical reasons, with terrible strategic consequences.  (E.g., boosting far-right candidates in Republican primaries with false-flag spending, hoping to have an easier opponent in the general election.)  These actions amplify extreme voices on the right, and anger and alienate moderate Republicans whose votes are needed to win elections.  These actions degrade the reputation of the Democratic Party as a truthful and trustworthy organization.