Politics Thread

[Strange Brew]

You only have so much political capitol in 2 years with a congress on your side.
R's used it to cut taxes (primarily helping the rich) which increased the deficit.
D's used it in an effort to get medical coverage for millions of Americans (Obama) and jump start the economy/deal with Covid (Biden).
The IRA was for infrastructure (what Trump talked about every week but never did), prescription drug, help, etc.

So, no deal. But if we had kept the Clinton tax rates in place for 25 years, used the projected surplus to pay down the debt (like you might at home), and not started unfunded wars (as we never did in the past)....perhaps there wouldn't even be a deficit/debt problem. You've got the right idea to return to those rates though. They created the balanced budget you hear so much about.

Ifs and buts Paul.

We wouldn’t have this level of debt if we hadn’t passed the New Deal and Great Society programs. Or if the Ds hadn’t got us in to Vietnam. Oh, and raided the SS “lockbox” But here we are.

Also most infrastructure is managed by State budgets sans Interstates. Commercial/industrial rail is mostly private as is energy.

So, what is Paul’s plan to balance the budget now? Because all I see is no cuts and massive taxes.

[paulxu]

Ifs and buts Paul.

We wouldn’t have this level of debt if we hadn’t passed the New Deal and Great Society programs. Or if the Ds hadn’t got us in to Vietnam. Oh, and raided the SS “lockbox” But here we are.

Yet despite all those challenges, Clinton handed Bush a balanced budget with a surplus. Not hard to figure out what went wrong.

[Strange Brew]

Yet despite all those challenges, Clinton handed Bush a balanced budget with a surplus. Not hard to figure out what went wrong.

Actually Newt was responsible for that budget. And Clinton ran on welfare reform sooo. I remember Clinton saying, “the era of big gov’t is over”.

Still doesn’t matter. What is Paul’s plan now? Can’t keep spending like this and can’t tax your way out of it.

Again, I’ll give you the Clinton eta tax rates. The wars are over and we’re still running massive deficits.

[paulxu]

Returning to those tax levels would appear to increase revenues back to around 20% of GDP.
Not quite enough to overcome our spending increase, but a hell of a start.
We could go after things like tax credits for oil companies who are recording record profits, close the loopholes that let major corporation pay little or no tax, seriously address Social Security with raising the contribution cap, and maybe the retirement age for benefit drawing predicated on longer lives.
There are a lot of other spending areas I'm sure. We shouldn't cut grants that drive innovation, but maybe lower the administrative component.
I'm sure you can think of a lot more.
The single biggest savings will never happen in my lifetime...fixing our health care system.
Just like Police and Fire, Health should be a non profit part of our society...like most developed nations.
The cost to all of us, and the government, is ridiculous.

[Strange Brew]

Returning to those tax levels would appear to increase revenues back to around 20% of GDP.
Not quite enough to overcome our spending increase, but a hell of a start.
We could go after things like tax credits for oil companies who are recording record profits, close the loopholes that let major corporation pay little or no tax, seriously address Social Security with raising the contribution cap, and maybe the retirement age for benefit drawing predicated on longer lives.
There are a lot of other spending areas I'm sure. We shouldn't cut grants that drive innovation, but maybe lower the administrative component.
I'm sure you can think of a lot more.
The single biggest savings will never happen in my lifetime...fixing our health care system.
Just like Police and Fire, Health should be a non profit part of our society...like most developed nations.
The cost to all of us, and the government, is ridiculous.

You’re right. In fact all of the tax increases and subsidy cuts won’t get us there.

CAP Federal spending at 16% (currently at about 39%) of GDP. ~historical average is around 26%. Post WWII we’ve averaged taxes extracted of about 17% of GDP. That’s just Federal taxes mind you.

I’ll let you figure out what’s most important. Throw some numbers together. I’m open to cutting whatever and maybe the Govt should get out of the healthcare business as prices have only increased drastically since it got involved. I’m talking about well before the ACA btw.

It seems about 17% of GDP is about the maximum burden the economy is willing to absorb. Keep that in mind.

[Xville]

Ifs and buts Paul.

We wouldn’t have this level of debt if we hadn’t passed the New Deal and Great Society programs. Or if the Ds hadn’t got us in to Vietnam. Oh, and raided the SS “lockbox” But here we are.

Also most infrastructure is managed by State budgets sans Interstates. Commercial/industrial rail is mostly private as is energy.

So, what is Paul’s plan to balance the budget now? Because all I see is no cuts and massive taxes.

You can’t just talk about Vietnam and then conveniently leave out all the unnecessary wars the republicans have gotten us in since then bud. Both parties are equally to blame in our ridiculous debt. Full stop. Fucking period

[Strange Brew]

You can’t just talk about Vietnam and then conveniently leave out all the unnecessary wars the republicans have gotten us in since then bud. Both parties are equally to blame in our ridiculous debt. Full stop. Fucking period

That wasn’t the point however the total cost of the Iraq and Afgan wars was about 4-6T over -20 years. Not really the driving factor of our debt problems. Something else is driving it and it has nothing to do with the military or taxes.

I agree Ville and neither Party wants to cut anything. Even if we got rid of the 2017 tax cuts it’s $4T over 10 years right? That’s $400B a year. Not going to get it done.

What are your thoughts on it? I mean you could confiscate the net worth (not income) of every billionaire in the US and fund the Gov’t for - a year. It’s not politics, it’s math.

[bjf123]

The late Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, penned this column in 2011.

http://walterewilliams.com/eat-the-rich/

I’m sure someone could update the numbers to today’s amounts, but I’d guess the results would be similar. We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem and no one in Congress has any interest in doing what is necessary.

I’ll agree that some tax increases are necessary. Remove the cap for social security taxes and increase the retirement age for Millennials and Gen Z. If more money is needed for Medicare, how about a small increase to the capital gains rate, like .001% on combined capital gains in excess of $1MM (just throwing out a couple of numbers).

[Xville]

I’m just glad we are adding another 5 trillion to the debt… smart governing

[paulxu]

25 years AFTER the Vietnam War, we had a balanced budget and no deficits.
25 year later, we don’t.

Also….wait….what? The UN guy agrees with our intelligence estimate?

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/29/world...tl?cid=ios_app