Quote:
Originally Posted by DON10E
BC, (Before Corona) tax revenue to the US Government was at an all time high. We collected more in taxes than ever in history. You'd think that would allow us to take care of business AND pay down some of the debt. But instead, we spent so much money that we ate up all the record income, but borrowed another Trillion.
The issue is not how to raise the money. The issue is how to compel these short sighted politicians to use the money to pay back what we've borrowed. The interest alone on the debt is about $500 BILLION per year. Imagine the good we could do with that money, or the stimulus we could provide to the private economy to generate even more tax revenue and a better quality of life.
Solve the real problem.
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I hear you. But you can't undo what was done in the past. The gov't is not a business nor a household. Neither of those fights wars, protects the weak, etc. So the US has borrowed money since
George Washington to do things for the common good.
"provide for the common defence and general Welfare of the United States" I read that somewhere....
The hope is spending now will help everyone; an improved economy thus providing the ability to pay back the lenders and make the quality of life better.
The difficulty has been that Americans [generalization and opinion] are strongly in favor of taxing somebody else, just not me. And when the economy is good, and tax revenues are good, well meaning people rally to lower taxes immediately. Then when there is a need for new spending like a new war or a major disaster, or just to fix our crumbling infrastructure, there is no money on hand and no will to tackle problems that need to be tackled. Why should people in Nebraska be asked to pay for flood control in New Orleans? Why should people in NY be asked to help repair fire losses in Wyoming or a tornado in Texas or fix a bridge in Ohio?
Most states won't increase taxes. The Club for Growth and the Tea party make sure of that. Instead they hope the Federal Gov't will step in. But all of us are the Federal gov't. So we do help because help is needed. Some money is set aside in each budget for disaster relief. It won't be enough many years.
The US issues IOU's [bonds] which it promises to honor to get the cash to pay now for things our present taxes don't cover. My modest proposal is to help pay the bills, the only other choice is to issue more IOU's which then results in more of our cash being spent to pay off those debts plus interest due.
The National Debt was 70 million in 1790. We almost paid if off, then came the War of 1812, back into deep debt. We almost paid it off then came the Civil War. Huge debt. We made some progress but not much and the need for an income tax led to an amendment. The WW1, then the Great Depression, then WW2. We have never gotten close to making a dent in the debt. That's ok as long as we can keep covering the cost of the borrowing.
Bemoaning that Lincoln got us into debt for the Civil War, or Wilson for WW1, or FDR for WW2, or Bush for Iraq is not solving the problem. I'm fine with debt, I'm fine with more debt. I'm not fine with saying we never need to figure out a way to work on the debt. Like a small tax on stock transactions.
tl:dr