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Given this nations love of living beyond its means I do not believe the debt will ever be paid off.
The debt was very nearly paid off in 1836. We won't make that mistake again.
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Originally Posted by Ron61
It might however disappear one day should we go bankrupt.
If it has taxing and currency-issuing authority, it is impossible for a national government to go bankrupt. Thinking that national governments are just like households is a huge blunder. The economy exists in three distinct sectors -- household, business, and government. There are reasons for that.
Payroll, sales, and excise taxes are regressive. Personal and corporate income taxes and estate taxes are progressive at the federal level, less so at the state and local level.
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Originally Posted by functionofx
...and holds down GDP growth...
Every penny of tax receipts is spent right back into the economy, often along with some additional pennies in the form of fiscal deficits. Obviously, these STIMULATE GDP growth. For an average American, 20-25% of what he claims to be his "hard-earned income" is either directly or indirectly the result of public sector spending.
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Originally Posted by functionofx
The very rich, usually manage to avoid all taxes, in part due to being smart, having a hoard of fiscal helpers, and paying lobbyists to help preserve their wealth.
Actually, the "very rich" pay less in taxes than the "almost very rich", but they pay more than everybody else. People can and mostly do take steps to minimize the taxes that they owe while still complying with the law, but it is folly to think that wealthy people can simply fly off in droves to Never Never Land.
I really think the biggest key to reducing deficits and debt is health care. America spends $1 Trillion annually on diseases that are largely preventable through healthier lifestyles.
Not preventable, but delayable. We are still going to die, and sickness comes before death for most of us. Few people go along merrily and drop dead in the street like a fly one day with no medical conditions causing problems beforehand.
We are still going to die, and sickness comes before death for most of us.
Few people go along merrily and drop dead in the street like a fly one day
with no medical conditions causing problems beforehand.
But because something like 90% of a persons lifetime medical expenses will occur within
the last three years of their lives... all we need to do is calculate a way to preempt that inevitability.
You don't worry about paying off the debt. You worry about balancing the budget. Because the REAL problem is that we BORROW 1/3 of our budget every year. The budget needs to be 100 percent financed by revenues.
If the budget is perfectly balanced in good times, then there will be a deficit again the next time there's a war, depression, or emergency of some sort.
But because something like 90% of a persons lifetime medical expenses will occur within the last three years of their lives... all we need to do is calculate a way to preempt that inevitability.
Death panels. Reviews should begin at age 50, since annual health care costs tend to increase exponentially after that. And given their longer life expectancies, perhaps women should be given closer scrutiny than men.
Or we could just stop engaging in such nonsense talk altogether and design a health care system that treats people who are sick regardless of their age, gender, or history of unhealthy behaviors.
Or.. Make a rule of Mandatory spending. I don't care if a CEO makes $75 million dollars this year. I care if he only spends $500,000 of it and invests the rest, essentially hording all that money. Come up with some type of rule like.. you can invest up to $3,000,000 of income a year. After that you can only invest 25% of it. So instead of a CEO making $75,000,000 and hording $74.5 million of it. They are forced to put 75% ($56 million) of it back into the economy, paying sales tax, creating jobs, etc. If they argue they can't figure out a way to spend that much money, then I argue you don't need that much money if you can't figure out how to spend it.
Reviews should begin at age 50, since annual health care costs tend to increase exponentially after that.
And given their longer life expectancies, perhaps women should be given closer scrutiny than men.
Good thinking but likely too cumbersome and the proles will still catch on.
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Or we could just stop engaging in such nonsense talk altogether and design a health care system that treats people
who are sick regardless of their age, gender, or history of unhealthy behaviors.
That'll never work.
Maybe just things like to encourage smoking again and remove seat belts from cars.
You know, delete those cumbersome regulations that Trump and the deploreables hate so much
Or.. Make a rule of Mandatory spending. I don't care if a CEO makes $75 million dollars this year. I care if he only spends $500,000 of it and invests the rest, essentially hording all that money. Come up with some type of rule like.. you can invest up to $3,000,000 of income a year. After that you can only invest 25% of it. So instead of a CEO making $75,000,000 and hording $74.5 million of it. They are forced to put 75% ($56 million) of it back into the economy, paying sales tax, creating jobs, etc. If they argue they can't figure out a way to spend that much money, then I argue you don't need that much money if you can't figure out how to spend it.
You do understand you started the post with an issue of the CEO investing all his wealth, proposed a limit to investing and then suggested they invest as a solution?
First off, I am not an economist. And I've looked for similar posts to avoid redundancy.
The national debt of 20 trillion dollars, with yearly deficits. How do we pay this off, if ever.
I've read about just "erasing" the debt because most is owed to us. Increased taxes, massive inflation via printing money to pay off debt. How do we pay the debt. Or...does it just go on forever.
Of course our debt will never be paid off. Over time our debt will rise, as our economy, GDP and needs rise. IMO in 10 and 100 years our national debt will be progressively larger. Barring loss of a world war or asteroid hit, unlikely to fall significantly for any significant length of time.
Inflation can be our bugger, not insolvency as our gov't is monetarily sovereign. Hyperinflation unlikely without concomitant disaster reducing our national productivity as above.
Debt interest expense can be controlled by keeping interest rates low and by issuing shorter term paper.
Of course we could increase taxes to help cover interest costs. Which also helps control inflation. Or maybe we can figure out a way how to issue money without the debt. Which might lead to more inflation.
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