$10 Trillion In Added Debt Shows Bush And Trump Tax Cuts Broke Our Modern Tax Structure

Exactly true and obvious. Thanks for posting.

 

Always find it interesting when money that is forcibly confiscated is titled as ‘revenue’ and what is universally defined as an expense in any business is then titled ‘investments’. So when an article like this is published they can’t even been economically and intellectually honest enough to use their own inverted language and say ‘our investments are outpacing our revenue ‘.

almost 60% of the budget is social
Security which was all spent and never in a lock box, govt paid health care, interest on debt and ‘income security’ such as earned income and child tax credits. Those numbers would indicate we have a policy generated spending problem and not a ‘revenue’ Problem

Policy Basics: Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go? | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

 

fun fact. If GAAP is used, the deficit went up 11T in 2004

 

I get the argument. You want to spend more of others people money. I’m also fully aware This is a lost cause for anyone that advocates fiscal responsibility. It’s easier to get 51% of the vote for you by promising to confiscate money from the other 49%. It’s why we have grotesquely inefficient government programs and 60% of the budget goes where it goes. Cool

 

If you want to live in a functional city, state, and country, you have to pay taxes. If that is unimportant to you, I expect there's some sort of failed state you can go live in where you don't have to worry about any taxes. Otherwise, it's simply the cost of living in a place with a government that provides security, infrastructure, and numerous other benefits. The pros easily outweigh the cons.

 

That does not square with what I see. More like the vast majority wants to confiscate from those in the future.

 

I actually partially agree with you. But none of what you mentioned above is where we spend 60% of the budget.

 

Then your complaint isn't with taxes. It's with spending.

 

2 in a row today. I mostly agree with you. The last sentence of my post was that we have a policy driven spending problem. Based on the 2023 budget breakdown of CBPP article I sourced in post #3, 60% of the budget is Govt Health, social security, interest and ‘income security’. Aka child and earned income tax credits etc. that would support my opinion that spending is the problem and not Oprah or Tom Brady not paying their ambiguous ‘fair share’. As far as taxes, unfortunately the push to raise taxes is driven mostly from the desire to be elected vs the efficient or effective delivery of a product or service that isn’t available in the free market….such as defense etc.

 

when you use the term “tax cut for the rich”, is this because the poor don’t pay any taxes?

Top 10% of earners pay 50% of taxes.

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance...enefited-middle-working-class-americans-most/

 

goo goo g’joob

 

But yet no US President has added more in actual dollars to the national debt than Barack Obama. So George W and Trump added $10 trillion over three combined terms while Obama himself added over $7.5 trillion in his two terms.

Seems to me Obama is getting a hall pass here.

 

seems better to fish where the fish are dumb.

 

Taxes aren't the problem. The argument is one of morality from the left, which is strange to me since the opposite argument involves morality as well.

The biggest problem is spending, and the overall inefficiency of the federal, state and local gov setup. The only thing holding the US economy up is our global dominance overseas in the world order post WW2. Once that breaks apart, which is we are very close to, the amount of poverty in the US will be historic. It's all bandaids and bubblegum.

I really don't know how to fix it, because our gov isnt setup to fix it. In all of human civilization, we as a species have never had a economy that was sustainable. One way or another, it is likely to collapse.

 

Federal Net Outlays as Percent of Gross Domestic Product

If you ignore the periods around 2008 and Covid years, spending as a percent to gdp was pretty consistent at around 20% of gdp going back to 1975. So this argument we have a spending problem is spurious.

It seems to be heading to a higher trajectory, primarily due to higher debt payments, or which a non trivial portion of that is due to tax cuts from 2001-2022.

I think there is a need for entitlement reform to reduce the future upward cost trend, but this spending problem narrative is half baked.