How will the US pay back its debt?

Discussion in 'Budget & Taxes' started by kazenatsu, Aug 27, 2020.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Voters are inherently inclined to focus on the economy, but I think the media will tell voters what to think about and what issues are important.
    Things would have to get very bad for many people before they started focusing on the economy in the absence of the media focusing on it.
     
  2. James California

    James California Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ~ I think they already have. Japan also.
     
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  3. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    In order to get the debt under control, Congress would need to stop raising spending every year and then increase taxes without spending the surplus on anything. Hard to do.
     
  4. Distraff

    Distraff Well-Known Member

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    1. Find a way to eliminate or nearly eliminate the yearly deficit.
    2. Inflate the money supply more than usual but not enough to start hyperinflation.
    3. Find ways to expand the economy.

    Result: The debt will soon become a much smaller part of the economy.
     
  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If you inflate the money supply, lenders will start demanding higher interest rates too.
    So gradual inflation is not really an effective way to get out of debt.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2020
  6. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    Soon ???
     
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  7. edthecynic

    edthecynic Well-Known Member

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    Mexico will pay for it!
     
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  8. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    We owe you sod all
     
  9. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    I was going to say we could try digging our way out of debt by raising the income tax rate to 40%. But then, I realized that it's almost there now. But I don't know how to calculate how an average person would get the 40% income tax rate.
     
  10. Esdraelon

    Esdraelon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yeah...I'm sure that THIS TIME, you've got him.
     
  11. Spim

    Spim Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I've always thought that implementing a national sales tax of 2% would be a terrific idea. Might also be a good time to revisit exemptions.

    Yes I know it creates a rabbit hole that we really don't want to go down but it still seems like the most practical approach. The system is already in place, not large enough that there would be major blowback, let the state collect and reimburse the fed. Generates immediate income stream.
     
  12. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    You mean the kind of national sales tax that wrecked Japan's economy when it was first introduced, and wrecked it again every time it was increased? That kind of national sales tax?
     
  13. Spim

    Spim Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sure.
     
  14. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    45 out of the 50 states already collect sales tax.

    Why do you think it would be a good idea for the federal government to start collecting it too?
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2020
  15. Spim

    Spim Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Mo money, mo money of course.

    Hits everyone fairly (IMO) based on spending, gets a small piece of the underground economy, the only downside is the massive list of exemptions.
     
  16. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Your opinion is objectively false. There is nothing fair about taxing people in proportion as they spend what they have earned. A sales tax is just a way of shifting the burden of taxation off privilege, where it rightly belongs, and onto economic activity, where it does not.
    And increases the underground economy as people resort to unrecorded and untaxed transactions to evade it. Hello?
    No, the downside is that it is unjust, economically destructive, and evil.
     
  17. Spim

    Spim Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Evil?

    [​IMG]

    great rant tho, really excellent rant, terrific.
     
  18. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Yes. Evil is deliberate abrogation of rights with intent to inflict injustice. That is what a sales tax is.
    <yawn> So you have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished, you know it, and you have no answers. Simple.
     
  19. Spim

    Spim Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Okie dokie, go high five satan or something
     
  20. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    I am also in favor of a federal sales tax. I would call it a war tax and that revenue can be used to help fight America's infinite wars.
     
  21. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Why whine about a couple of extremely low level, low death rate conflicts? And what is so important about a war the U.S. fights lasting only two or three years.
     
  22. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    It's because the US wars in the middle east cost an arm and a leg. I haven't looked up the numbers since George W Bush was in office, but I think I remember during our little adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan that Bush was going to congress every month looking for billions of dollars in emergency funding.
     
  23. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    A University of Chicago study indicated that continuing to "contain" Iraq (the policy from 1991 to 2003) another 20 years would've cost about as much as the war and occupation did

    https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...48bb92580770732c4cb8/1580288189901/w12092.pdf
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2020
  24. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Of course it's mathematically possible at this point to pay down debt. Math is not the root problem of our national debt!

    The American people are not interested in paying down debt unless someone else is doing the paying. Politicians have zero motivation to pay down debt since any mention of decreased spending or increased taxation gets them booted from office.

    The US will need both an economy on steroids and in parallel fiscal responsibility to ever pay down $1 of debt...it won't happen and it's not because of math...
     
  25. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Remember that a substantial portion of U.S. debt is actually owed to ourselves.
     

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