Since most of the current debt stems from the Trump and Bush Tax cuts the fastest way to reduce the debt is to return tax rates to what they were during the Clinton years. This is the empirical approach. One should choose conditions that have been demonstrated to work rather than do stuff solely based on ideology with little evidence in support.
Evidence that the Bush and Trump tax cuts caused most of the current debt:
The Bush tax cuts would only increase growth enough to make up 10% of their long-run cost. Maintaining the cuts has been estimated to cost $4.6 trillion from 2012 to 2021…
…The TCJA is estimated to increase the deficit by $1 to $2 trillion from 2018 to 2025. It will only increase growth by 0.7% annually, thus reducing some of the revenue loss from the tax cuts. The Bush Tax Cuts and Their Impact on the Economy
Q: During the Clinton administration was the federal budget balanced? Was the federal deficit erased?
Clinton’s tax hikes did nothing over the course of more than a decade because there was little or no infrastructure spending. We can not have an industrial build out without a huge investment in infrastructure.
We have that investment now…but the ejits want to cut it.
Note the people for cutting the budget have NEVER been right or knowledgeable about economics.
And yet the people who quote this tripe from Fox won’t care. They never care. It doesn’t matter to them that the sources they use are lying to them, misstating facts, propagandizing current events. They just don’t care if it’s accurate or not
For the main topic, “foreign aid” usually buys us something. Not always; you give your son an allowance and he still doesn’t do everything you want, but it’s a way of exerting influence.
Our foreign aid to Israel, for instance, is in the form of gift certificates which they can use to buy American weaponry. It therefore provides American jobs while giving us a reliable ally in a strategically important area of the world The money to Egypt also buys American arms, but also gives us an ally on the other side of the fence in helping track and fight terrorism.
Much of our other foreign aid is used to (hopefully) produce a stable middle class in various countries who can then become consumers of American products (food, most importantly) and who will resist the temptation to side with China and/or Russia, the other large power blocs in world politics. Sometimes it just gives us ports so our Navy has someplace to refuel. Sometimes it’s actually humanitarian, a novel concept, apparently.
When it comes to sheer dollar amounts the US is #1 in dispensing aid. We also have an enormous economy, and it might surprise some to know that our percent of foreign aid is among the smallest in the world
Greater per capita foreign aid is given by Germany, UK, Japan, France, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Portugal, Iceland.
Who are we more generous than?
Poland, Slovenia, South Korea, Greece, Czech Republic, and Hungary. Whoopee!
Depends on what you call infrastructure. The federal government expends a lot of resources supporting R&D in government institutions and universities that directly benefit private industry. NIH is a major reason why the US leads the world in pharmaceuticals. The USDA has made US farmers among the most efficient food producers. The military and DOE are why US aerospace and computer tech are so competitive.
If you look at those industries where the US are global leaders, you will find a lot of government involvement. Moderna’s and Pfizer’s technology to make the Covid vaccine was developed through federal grants given to big university labs.
The U.S. spends a lot on infrastructure, it just not in the traditional categories.
US R&D spending was the highest in the 1950s in relative terms.
You are kidding yourself that because we spend some money the job is done. Sort of kidding yourself that that would be good…in reality better than not much.
“Do you understand you are lied to constantly in your circles?”
“You are eating total nonsense about SS, Medicare and the interest on the debt.”
“You are being lied to that welfare is the reason for the debt. You have not done due diligence to find out if you have accurate information.”
Rather than resort to insulting me and dealing in vague generalities, please show me with appropriate fact links why SS, Medicare, other social spending plus increased interest will not be the main drivers of our %debt/GDP to increase.
Or do you actually believe, contrary to the CBO’s projections, that our debt/GDP will not increase?
Please learn to discuss issues without implying that the person on the other side of the discussion is ignorant or stupid.
Most of debt results from increased spending over decades, regardless of what the tax rate is, plus the amazing amount of money we spent on COVID.
Please see the chart of all Federal receipts/revenue that I linked in another post. It will show that we have a spending problem and not a revenue problem.
Oh, and please note this from your link:
" * President George W. Bush authorized two significant tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and an income tax rebate in 2008.
President Barack Obama made a good many of these provisions permanent when he signed the American Taxpayer Relief Act in 2012."
As to the wealthy being the primary beneficiary of tax cuts, please explain the upward trend in the amount of tax paid by the top 1% pay since the most recent tax cuts.
Facts are amazing things!
Murph
(who notes that business cycles probably have more impact on the changes in the % of taxes paid by the top 1% than marginal tax rates, given the nature/composition of their income)
This World Bank data shows US R&D as a percent of GDP climbing to its highest in 25 years. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?locations=US
Of course, it doesn’t go back to the 1950s. It also doesn’t cover non-government R&D. The NSF tells us that in 2017, for example, business R&D was many times higher than government R&D.
Yes, they are. Just like the fact that high income people have seen their share of total income increase. Sort of stands to reason that, with higher relative income, their taxes would be higher, in spite of their marginal tax rate falling.
Your last link is for 1981-2018: how about something more current than 4+ years old.
Something dramatic must have happened from 2018 to 2019 and 2020:
" * The top 1 percent’s income share rose from 20.1 percent in 2019 to 22.2 percent in 2020 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 38.8 percent to 42.3 percent.
The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent."
See Table one which shows 2020 share of income versus share of federal taxes (Table 1. Summary of Federal Income Tax Data, Tax Year 2020)
Looks like things are getting more progressive versus the less progressive you portray.
As to this: “Sort of stands to reason that, with higher relative income, their taxes would be higher, in spite of their marginal tax rate falling.”
The top 1%'s share of income went up from 20.1% in 2019 to 22.2% IN 2020, while their share of Federal income tax increased at a much higher rate: from 38.8% to 42.3%
Cheers!
Murph
(tried to find out how your source–PEW–defined upper, middle and lower for their specific study, but didn’t find it. My wife often says I am blind, so could you point me to them so I can do more analysis?)
The deficit is only an issue when the Shinies are in opposition. Greenspan had a weather vane on his head. As soon as the regime change occurred, I remember Greenspan pronouncing a falling national debt as a problem. Seems, he figured out a way to say that a falling supply of government bonds would be a problem, because so many other instruments use government bond rates as a baseline. without everyone laffing out loud…of course, his audience wanted him to say big deficits were needed, because they had plans:
Priority #1: tax cuts for their friends.
Priority #2: make up some wars, to facilitate transfer of wealth to their friends.
Priority #3: more tax cuts for their friends.
Deficit? Wazzat? Oh, yeah, “deficit” is the excuse to take money and services away from “not our friends”
Seems we would need tax payments as a percent of income to evaluate how progressive or not the tax burden is for each income group.
If the income amounts that define the income percentiles are increasing faster than the tax paid, this would be a regressive trend (not sure how the data plays out here, just saying we need the data to evaluate this).
The top 1%'s share of income went up from 20.1% in 2019 to 22.2% IN 2020, while their share of Federal income tax increased at a much higher rate: from 38.8% to 42.3%.
Now you are making up “facts”. It is clear that we had found the balance between tax rates and spending during the Clinton years as evidenced by a balanced budget. No need for guess work here. History tells us that the tax rate at that time balanced the budget.
This graph from the CBO should answer all your other points/questions.
The wealth gain of the top 10% really began to distance itself from everyone else after the Bush tax cuts in 2001. Obama made a mistake in making the cuts permanent as seen by the acceleration of wealth inequality after 2012.
Given this huge increase in the proportion of wealth held by the top 10% over the past 30 years, is it any surprise that the wealthy are paying a higher percentage of tax now than in the past? The surprise is that you think it makes your point.
Again, if the issue is the deficit and the national debt then this is what we know. The Clinton administration balanced the budget. The Bush administration lowered the tax rate and we have had increasing deficits ever since. Gee, I wonder what caused the deficit?
Facts are amazing things but it helps if you can look at them objectively.
