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
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.