Big Beautiful Bill passes the Senate....goes back to the house.

What if they just charged a 50% income tax to everyone on top of current taxes? That would be what? Around $30k per taxpayer per year? Then the national debt could be reduced to near nothing in about 11 or 12 years.

 

The hope is that tariffs can become sort of a consumption tax, eliminating the need for an income taxi like it was prior to 1910.

 

I often don't see much of a difference between any of the proposed solutions. Either a person takes home less money and things stay the same price, or things get more expensive while a person makes the same amount of money (or a combination of both). Either way, the result is the same, your money earned now affords less so the excess can go to something the government wants to do (like lower the deficit).

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, except when people can't afford necessities.

 

Government handles a lot more today than it did in 1910. Are they also going to reduce defense spending to 1910 rates?

 

Are we also going back to when the majority of American families couldn't afford a house so we all go back to renting?

What about all the gadgets and doodads that Americans didn't have back then but now need to afford such as cars and cellphones?

 

they'll make sure you can afford the gadgets and doodads. keep the masses hypnotized and they'll never complain

 

We're starting to really cut down as we can't afford the space to keep a lot of gadgets and doodads. The TV is now gone in our 10 x 12' living/dining/kitchen room for the four of us.

 

I can't believe that US citizens don't see the crazy tariffs for what they are, a consumer tax. Unless you can live of wholly made in the USA using 100% US produced products to produce it, you will be paying a consumer tax.

Now, add that to the taxes you are already paying and see if you have seen a tax reduction, or a tax increase ......

There is no way to calculate the national debt per tax payer, some would pay a lot more tax than others, some might be reported as a tax payer, but actually pay no tax, so per head of the US citizens makes more sense.

Fix an acceptable limit per citizen, past that point, the income that would be received by any federal politician, goes directly to paying down the national debt, president down, every one of them.
Any financial interests that are not acceptable by the constitution, whether personal or part of a family company that would constitute a conflict of interest, be confiscated by treasury and put towards the national debt.

It seems to me that this would deter any attempts to use their political position for financial gain, and make them think twice about escalating the national debt for political gain .......

I think the independents should form a pressure group to become a 3rd party .....
Keep the Bastards honest.....
A term used by a defector from the then party in power to form a separate party in the middle of the two major parties. They received a lot of protest votes ..... but slowly dwindled away till they no longer exist, but a loosely aligned party called the "Teal Party" because of their chosen banner colour, are all independents, and they are unseating a lot of members who thought they held their position with rusted on voters ...... they found out the hard way, from high flyer to the unemployment line.

T1 Terry

 

Almost any type of debt is eventually going to be a problem - balanced budget are best, of course.

Australia should understand that perfectly well:

Australian Government debt nudges $1 trillion as Budget returns to deficit | The Nightly

‘It’s pretty dire’: Australia’s fiscal situation will ‘only get worse’ after budget as both parties abandon spending constraint | Sky News Australia

‘Not behind us’: Australians issued brutal cost of living warning | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site for latest headlines

In the US many warnings are being issued about our national debt and the US drop in credit rating.
Some describe it as now an imminent crisis:
Is A Bond Crisis Imminent?

August debt crisis: Imminent debt default: U.S. hurtling toward August debt crisis as CBO warns government could run out of money without Congressional action; here's how it will affect Americans - The Economic Times

I don't know how severe it will be, but the US (and any country) with high debt is mortgaging the future financial stability of its younger generations - it's not ethical.

Our debt is not political it is a national disgrace.

 

Worth remembering, in that connection, is that while the debt is bigger than we should want, the first time our credit rating ever was downgraded, the reason wasn't so much the size per se, as that politicians were threatening to start failing to pay for what's spent, unnecessarily and willfully, as a bargaining chip.

It was as if you and your spouse were dealing with an excessive debt burden, and it was a problem but you still had the ability to stay current, and then you said to your spouse "all right, if you don't agree to my demands, I'll quit paying our bills on time, ruin our credit rating, and make our whole situation manifestly worse."

That would be a sufficiently irresponsible way of approaching a household debt problem to likely lose you the spouse and the kids.

 

Unfortunately, the debt accumulation in the US is not static - which means that the above not-quite metaphoric example is not 'quite' what we're dealing with. You would have to add in the part about the spouse insisting on higher and higher credit card limits...to keep the debt servicing current. The OBBB insists that you can still increase spending as long as the economy keeps increasing faster than politicians can spend more money.
This is as foolish as spending terra-bucks on green energy and shovel-ready jobs.

Simple math states that both sides are right AND both sides are wrong.
Taxes ARE going to have to go up AND spending IS going to have to go down.
They call it 'simple math' for a pretty good reason - which, thanks to our education system most people struggle with!
The first thing you learn in shipboard damage control - ESPECIALLY in submarines is that plugging the leak IS ALWAYS more important than dewatering the ship.

Frankly?
THE FIRST STEP most successful households do when they're combatting family debt is to cut up the credit cards - otherwise all too often families....AREN'T any more.
One spouse goes on the 'every other weekend' plan...and MAYBE the other one keep the house.

This is another area where the current POTUS is acting as foolishly as his political opponents.
Probably THE BEST outcome would be a gradual RISE in interest rates to somewhere around 10%.

What were the interest rates in the roaring 20's?
AND what happened in the not-so-roaring 30's?

 

I might add that if we think only future generations will pay the penalty for this sadly mistaken policy, we are wrong.

When the Fed buys its own bonds and does it by printing more and more money as it currently does - this does at least two things to current people with Savings,401K's, IRA' s etc- the influx of the record amounts of funny money being printed actually devalues the dollar and all holding in dollars and spurs future inflation-which also makes money worth less.

For example; if you have let's say $100,000 and it is worth $100,000 - if some knucklehead (the Fed and Treasury Department) is allowed to print unlimited amounts of funny money with no financial backing your $100,000 worth is worth proportionately less.

.... so in reality our 401K's, Savings, IRA's etc.are all being devalued and silently stolen by this government sponsored fiscal irresponsibility.

Only a very foolish individual would believe they are immune to the effects of this type fiscal irresponsibly and they can kick the can down the road to affect others rather than themselves.

Very wealthy people and others who might be able to afford it can pay Financial Advisors and CPA's to help them mitigate the effects of these types of government fiscal monkeyshines.

Gosh, I fell better getting that off my chest....

 

some do, some don't, same as anywhere. the problem right now is that many are waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it hasn't happened yet, despite the constant trump doom saying of the past 10 years.

 

An analogy between credit card limits and the US 'debt ceiling', though, doesn't quite wash.

A limit on your credit card actually limits how much you can obligate yourself to pay (using that card, anyway).

The US debt ceiling is this extra second step where you threaten not to pay what you've already obligated yourself to pay.

That kind of behavior directly invites credit rating downgrades, 'cause whether you can be relied on to pay what you've obligated yourself to pay is literally what credit ratings are about.

 

Not sure where you got that information from Government | Australian Bureau of Statistics that says as of March this yr, Australia has a deficit of $0.7 billion AUD, that's $700 million AUD or $456,470,000.00 USD .... I bet you wished the USA could balance a budget like that ..... The Aust economy, under a Labour Govt, drifts between debit and surplus, does the US Fed even know what surplus means?
Yet,
We have a pharmaceutical benefits scheme, with a safety net that drops the cost to zero $$ after a certain amount has been spent by the single or family, out of their own pocket .........

Medicare where all medical charges are covered for those who can not afford the crazy price of health insurance. If the medical professional charges more than the govt rebate, the patient then must cover the difference .... if it's too outrageous, they find even the private health funds won't pay enough to cover it and the patient looks else where ..... they would have to be exceptionally good to stay busy ......

Electricity cost assistance if the person is below a certain income level

Rates reduction for pensioners

Rent assistance for aged pensioners, those on a disability pension, sickness benefit and the unemployed ......

We have our rich elites, but they don't get a free ride, if you earn above a certain threshold and don't have private health insurance, you pay a levy on top of your tax bill to supplement the Medicare scheme ..... only fair and both my wife and I have happily paid it when we were both working ........

Australia isn't necessarily the lucky country any more these days, but we are trying hard to stay within our means ......

T1 Terry

 

Those with money have sold their US govt bonds and invested in real gold .... in another country, and those countries are now taking their gold out of the USA so their base wealth is stable, the US has proved to be very unstable since DJT gained power and seems to forget who the American's friends were .... it has been a good thing for Australia, that feeling of owing the US for saving them from more Japanese invasions, DJT has now severed, so we can get on with doing business that better suits Australia than the USA .....

T1 Terry

 

Actually I think that my bad analogy is a little more accurate than your bad analogy but all of this is really pointless because our debt loading is a self-solving problem.
I looked it up, because I was in a hurry:
"Safe as houses" is a British English idiom meaning completely safe or secure. It implies a high degree of reliability and protection, comparable to the perceived safety of owning a house.

How is that working for you after 2008?
WHAT CAUSED THAT?
HOW MANY PEOPLE WENT TO JAIL?

Precisely but that's the cure, really.
The ONLY WAY to break our government from its current binge is to raise the rates to disincentivize MORE borrowing.

What's been good for AU is being Asia's coal bunker and meat locker.
If you think that any Australian under the age of 80 is worried about being invaded by the Japans, then your primary education system is not as good as I have been led to expect that it is.
Actually?
I sometimes wish that we were more like your nation!
I wish we could use OUR military for border enforcement.
We have to use our P-8A Poseidons to hunt for submarines.....
YOU use them for (wink-wink!) "maritime surveillance"
WE have "Alligator Alcatraz"
YOU have "Christmas Island."

 

It was a Govt mentality, owing the USA for saving Aust from multiple invasions .... we fought off one, maybe we could have fought off more, who knows ..... but at least we won't need to be on the losing end of and trade deals in the future .....

I mean, how ridiculous is the submarine deal ........ Hopefully we won't throw our hard earned money down the toilet the way we did with the French submarine deal ...... fingers crossed we don't get dun over ......

T1 Terry

 

I suppose what either of us thinks may not matter as much as whether the US debt ceiling is a ceiling on incurring obligation, or a ceiling on responsible payment of what's been obligated.

 

The US never REALLY 'saved' AU from being invaded (during WW2) because Imperial Japan never had a desire to actually INVADE AU - unless you count Port Moresby, New Guinea (an Australian territory at the time.)
Americans were using AU as a forward base of operations for our submarine warfare operations and (later) as a logistics hub for later campaigns in the South Pacific.
The Japanese can read maps too.
They were trying to take parts of New Guinea in order to isolate AU and deny the Allies that logistical foothold - but it was a fool's errand from the beginning.
You have to remember all of the things that were happening at the time.
Great Britain ceased being a 'Superpower' a little after noon local on 10 December 1942 when Churchill used 18th strategery to fight a 20th century battle. When Prince of Whales and Repulse sank - the sun DID set on the British Empire.
Then?
Singapore, the "Gibraltar of the East" fell to a numerically inferior force.
There was (and remains!) a racial undertone to all of this as well - on both sides.
Oh.....and did I mention that all of this happened in 1942?
Quite a few Auzzies (ANZACs) were all the way on the other side of the planet fighting Hitler.

Logistics....
It's ALWAYS logistics.
People even today do not appreciate how friggin' BIG the Pacific really IS.
In 1942 it was MUCH MUCH bigger in terms of logistics.
In the 1940s the most expensive programme that was undertaken by America was NOT the Manhattan Project!
It was the development of an airplane that could haul bombs to mainland Japan.

Math doesn't really care what people 'think.'
If you don't talk about the spending - then the repayment is moot.
Politicians always talk about PAYMENT which is just a transfer of funds.
It's easy to think of it in these terms when the 'funds' are somebody else's
Nobody ever says REPAYMENT, do they?
"repayment" specifically refers to the act of returning borrowed funds.
Politicians (and they ALL do it!) merely want to keep raising the credit card limits, and they use the circular logic that "we have to keep borrowing more money or the markets will not let us borrow more money!!!!"

Back in the 80's, during the Regan administration Donkeys and Elephants worked together to put a six-decade Band-Aid on Social Security.
It didn't take much at all.
That bandage is about to fall off, and then all of these "6-versus-half dozen arguments" will be a little less important.

Pends on what you mean by 'dun over.'
Personally?
I would not try to re-invent the wheel.
You always have the option of buying a few British SSNs (and/or a few Yank boats) along with a really REALLY good 'Air Independent Propulsion' unit from Japan...... and seeing for yourself which is a better fit.
Remember that part about the Pacific being very large?

The "nuke or conventional" argument in submarines depends on whether you want to 'attack or defend.'
In Rugby?
The better players can do BOTH.