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Adam Tooze: It’s Time to End the Trillion-Dollar Taboo

To solve the world’s biggest problems, governments need to take spending to the next level.

By , a deputy editor at Foreign Policy.
A man wearing a collared shirt and backpack walks past a sign displayed on a bus stop shelter in Washington, D.C. In capital letters against a blue background the sign says "The national debt is $32 trillion and growing."
A man wearing a collared shirt and backpack walks past a sign displayed on a bus stop shelter in Washington, D.C. In capital letters against a blue background the sign says "The national debt is $32 trillion and growing."
Pedestrians walk past a poster and electronic billboard that displays the current U.S. national debt—$32 trillion—in Washington, D.C., on July 5. Jemal Countess/Getty Images for the Peter G. Peterson Foundation

Over the past decade, the world has gotten accustomed to hearing about public spending at the level of hundreds of billions of dollars. But trillions of dollars, as a unit of measure in the economy, still represents a threshold that governments seem reluctant to cross—even as underlying political events call for just that. It’s a political constraint that may ultimately have a psychological foundation—which is not to suggest that it’s one that’s easily overcome.

Cameron Abadi is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @CameronAbadi

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