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.