I think tax increases are a hard sell when they are $40T in debt. The government has proven themselves to be poor stewards of this money. People don’t like giving money to people who spend recklessly with no sign of stopping. If they can’t figure out a budget today, I have no expectation they’ll be able to handle even more money.
Now, if there was no debt and things were generally good, and they said, “if you want universal healthcare we will need to raises taxes by n%, here is the proposed plan that we will put to a vote in the fall.” That would a transparent and justifiable way to go about it. Taxes would go up, but people would get a vote, get something in return, and know that the government isn’t spending wildly without any plan to ever pay it back.
People don’t like giving money to people who spend recklessly
spending wildly
1. Per the linked data in the GP comment, the US has the lowest spending of any of the major advanced economies in the world (fed + state + local). The idea that the US is "spending wildly" is a falsehood pushed by Republicans - the US is the lowest spender. The deficit/debt is because taxes are so low (also by far the lowest taxes among peer countries, so that even before last year's OBBB added $4.7 trillion to the debt (Reuters source in GP comment), tax rates could have been raised by more than 15% and still been the lowest (fed + state + local, source link in GP comment). Every large-scale system has some fraud; if we want to hire more people to fight fraud, sometimes the cost of fighting the fraud is more than the amount saved, but I have no problem with the idea either way - but none of that excuses Republicans claiming that spending is out of control, let alone even being average nor as high as our 2nd-lowest peer.)
2. If your suggestion is that raising taxes is not the best solution, what do you think is the best solution? A) Kick the can down the road and let the debt + interest continue to grow? B) Cut spending? If cut, cut what exactly and how much of the US $11T/year spending does it make up? https://www.bea.gov/data/government/receipts-and-expenditure...
Having low spending is not responsible if that low spending is still beyond what can be afforded without debt.
I think we need drastic cuts across the board to avoid this spiraling out of control. At the very least we need to stop making the situation worse. If people find the cuts untenable, then temporary tax increases can be explored, but in that scenario, I’d want to see the debt is going down. Since servicing the debt is the largest line item in the budget, once it’s manageable, some of those cut services can come back online. The whole nation will need to make sacrifices to get things under control, but if they don’t choose their sacrifice now, it will likely be forced upon them later when the house of cards falls.
I’m a fan of Buffett’s idea of making all members of Congress ineligible for reelection if the budget deficit grows too large. Putting something like this in place would align incentives and drive them to actually do something instead of just teasing ideas around election time.
Having the lowest spending doesn’t mean the spending is responsible.
How do you decide whether the spending is responsible? Is spending on the military responsible? Medicare? Social security? Paying interest that is due? Because those are the biggest categories of spending: https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function
How do you know whether the US is "spending wildly" or actually has the lowest rate of spending among its peer countries, and whether or not you believe it based on propaganda you've heard vs. deep comparisons to spending by peer countries, or whether it's because taxes are too low?
But OK, if we did go with the idea of spending cuts, the biggest categories are 1) military, 2) Medicare, 3) social security - what % of each of them are you proposing cutting? (Or if not the biggest items, what specific items are you proposing to cut, and what % of total spending does it make up?) Even if you think getting us to have the same tax rates as the lowest of our peer countries would be unpopular, personally I think that "drastic" cuts as you mentioned would be even more unpopular.
Also, looking at debt alone (instead of spending) does not inherently give you any insight about whether taxes were too low, or spending was too high. (That's why I recommend to look separately at spending and taxes against peer countries.)
The proposal you mentioned around reelection ineligibility sounds intriguing, although the biggest criticism I've seen of it seems to be that it's too simplistic for circumstances like a pandemic or recession - i.e. we should be building up our reserves during the good years (which is something I'm incredibly critical of Republicans for - they insist on returning taxpayer funds or cutting taxes during boom periods) so that we have funds available for the bust periods.
Comments
I think tax increases are a hard sell when they are $40T in debt. The government has proven themselves to be poor stewards of this money. People don’t like giving money to people who spend recklessly with no sign of stopping. If they can’t figure out a budget today, I have no expectation they’ll be able to handle even more money.
Now, if there was no debt and things were generally good, and they said, “if you want universal healthcare we will need to raises taxes by n%, here is the proposed plan that we will put to a vote in the fall.” That would a transparent and justifiable way to go about it. Taxes would go up, but people would get a vote, get something in return, and know that the government isn’t spending wildly without any plan to ever pay it back.
1. Per the linked data in the GP comment, the US has the lowest spending of any of the major advanced economies in the world (fed + state + local). The idea that the US is "spending wildly" is a falsehood pushed by Republicans - the US is the lowest spender. The deficit/debt is because taxes are so low (also by far the lowest taxes among peer countries, so that even before last year's OBBB added $4.7 trillion to the debt (Reuters source in GP comment), tax rates could have been raised by more than 15% and still been the lowest (fed + state + local, source link in GP comment). Every large-scale system has some fraud; if we want to hire more people to fight fraud, sometimes the cost of fighting the fraud is more than the amount saved, but I have no problem with the idea either way - but none of that excuses Republicans claiming that spending is out of control, let alone even being average nor as high as our 2nd-lowest peer.)
2. If your suggestion is that raising taxes is not the best solution, what do you think is the best solution? A) Kick the can down the road and let the debt + interest continue to grow? B) Cut spending? If cut, cut what exactly and how much of the US $11T/year spending does it make up? https://www.bea.gov/data/government/receipts-and-expenditure...
Having the lowest spending doesn’t mean the spending is responsible.
The US is 11 or 4 when it comes to debt (depending on if you’re looking at gross or net debt).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...
Having low spending is not responsible if that low spending is still beyond what can be afforded without debt.
I think we need drastic cuts across the board to avoid this spiraling out of control. At the very least we need to stop making the situation worse. If people find the cuts untenable, then temporary tax increases can be explored, but in that scenario, I’d want to see the debt is going down. Since servicing the debt is the largest line item in the budget, once it’s manageable, some of those cut services can come back online. The whole nation will need to make sacrifices to get things under control, but if they don’t choose their sacrifice now, it will likely be forced upon them later when the house of cards falls.
I’m a fan of Buffett’s idea of making all members of Congress ineligible for reelection if the budget deficit grows too large. Putting something like this in place would align incentives and drive them to actually do something instead of just teasing ideas around election time.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/CfeoRlid8nQ?ra=m
How do you decide whether the spending is responsible? Is spending on the military responsible? Medicare? Social security? Paying interest that is due? Because those are the biggest categories of spending: https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function
How do you know whether the US is "spending wildly" or actually has the lowest rate of spending among its peer countries, and whether or not you believe it based on propaganda you've heard vs. deep comparisons to spending by peer countries, or whether it's because taxes are too low?
But OK, if we did go with the idea of spending cuts, the biggest categories are 1) military, 2) Medicare, 3) social security - what % of each of them are you proposing cutting? (Or if not the biggest items, what specific items are you proposing to cut, and what % of total spending does it make up?) Even if you think getting us to have the same tax rates as the lowest of our peer countries would be unpopular, personally I think that "drastic" cuts as you mentioned would be even more unpopular.
Also, looking at debt alone (instead of spending) does not inherently give you any insight about whether taxes were too low, or spending was too high. (That's why I recommend to look separately at spending and taxes against peer countries.)
The proposal you mentioned around reelection ineligibility sounds intriguing, although the biggest criticism I've seen of it seems to be that it's too simplistic for circumstances like a pandemic or recession - i.e. we should be building up our reserves during the good years (which is something I'm incredibly critical of Republicans for - they insist on returning taxpayer funds or cutting taxes during boom periods) so that we have funds available for the bust periods.