US national debt tops $34T for first time in history

I agree with you that there needs to be some capital gains changes in the tax code. But also, those deductions are there for anyone to use. I just think that there needs to be a change so that those living off cap gains would pay more. The deduction is to encourage investment, not as a paycheck.

But, that still doesn't change the data. If you made the uber rich pay more in cap gains, you would just skew the data to say that the top 5% pay way more than 50% and the bottom would still not be paying their fair share.

 

That's of Democrat design, dependency, it's the lefts new an improved slavery. And the beauty of it is, the same party that shed blood fighting against the idea and practice now pay taxes to finance this practice.

 

Now we're narrowing in on an agreement!

The point is though, being truly honest? It's not just the 'uber' rich who benefit from low capital gains taxes. Anyone who receives capital gains benefits. It's just that those benefits tend to accrue much more rapidly once your in the upper income quartile. In the end and at the least a 'fair' tax system would/should ensure that any one citizen would not pay more in tax (expressed as a % of their total income) than any other. Why should persons in the lower two quartiles of total income pay more in tax as % of that income than the upper 50%? Put simply that's not happening at the moment.

And that leaves the other end of the equation Expenditure. The US has a spending problem and its not the usual suspects. In terms of historic and predicted growth Medicare and Medicaid and health spending in general have outpaced inflation for decades. Beyond that? Increasing interest payments on national debt is the rising star of the pack.

 

Putting it on the people who have the power and no interest in doing it doesn't leave many options.

 

So we disagree.

 

I have no idea what you are trying to state. Again, no one is doing anything, so people making this an issue only when their political adversary is in office is petty. The politicians if they wanted to, could at least try something.

 

Again... Biden has decreased the rate on increase... and that was due to only from the expired COVID stimulus.

Exactly why they are proposing enlisting Illegal Immigrants into the military. It shores up their voter base and gives them a military force that has zero allegiance to the US constitution. In essence, building a silent military force to deal with the so called "deplorable's".

Senator Dick Durbin Proposes Arming Illegal Immigrants, Providing Them with Military Training

 

We will NEVER generate enough revenue to mitigate the current spending. Especially at the current rate of growth our debt is growing.. Nearly $212 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities!!!

When the dollar crashes... and it will, especially when the Petro dollar is no more, our collapse will make the Soviet Union collapse look like a day at the park...

 

As usual you're spewing more emotional rants. I'm not a Trump Fan but carry on with your wisdom, it cracks me up.

 

Really hard to take you seriously when you can't give credit for ending the cold war and can't even acknowledge Covid Relief under Trump. Very disingenuous but yea military spending.

 

Yet, with all the teeth gnashing, I have yet to see a SERIOUS proposal from the GOP fiscal hawks and their voters. It's easy to say "let's just cut spending", but much more difficult to actually do it. Especially when they have convinced their voters, with the hep of RW media propaganda, that the problem will go away if we cut foreign aid to, for example, Ukraine and stop paying for services to illegal immigrants.

What they don't realize: To balance the budget without touching SS and Medicare (which their voters don't want to do, because many of them receive benefits, including the vast majority of conservative posters on here), you'd have to cut 100% of discretionary spending. In other words ALL OF IT. Therefore, the problem can't be addressed without touching the big three, i.e. SS, Medicare and defense. Yet, the GOP politicians just pretend that of we cut some benefits to welfare queens (their derogatory term for the poorest of the poor), everything will be fine.

So, what we need is a SERIOUS discussion, and SERIOUS proposals, not the politicized B$ from the self-proclaimed fiscal hawks. Unless that happens, nothing will be done to address the problem.

 

THEY DON'T WANT TO. That was my point.

 

Actually it is very simple to do. It requires will to do it, not special knowledge.

Non-discretionary spending is just spending. Every nickel of it can be trashed if they have the will to do it. In fact, just eliminating everything that the 10th amendment sends to the states would end 70% of spending. Social Security and Medicare are insurance policies paid by the recipients. That is non-discretionary because people already paid for it directly. They should send it to the states for the future but they would still have to honor the existing accounts. Defense is an important enumerated power of federal government. It belongs there. It wouldn't hurt to manage it competently. We should be paying our taxes to the states which are closer to the people and not to federal government.

What I said above is a SERIOUS proposal. Everyone is thinking inside the box. It doesn't have to be the way it is now. It shouldn't be. It is the greatest problem affecting the nation and the one literally nobody but me wants to see fixed.

 

The US Military has for at least a decade, declining recruitment, including during the Trump Administration. However, allowing those who are here illegally to join the US military is not a new idea. Look at the French Foreign Legion as a prime example. It is foreigners who join, and after serving their time, they are given French Citizenship. It is just that the Foreign Legion does not look into the past of those who are being recruited into the Foreign Legion. So, why not do the same? It allows them to become citizens while serving the country they want to live in? Solves our recruiting problem within the US military. We will just do thorough background checks, making sure they are not associated with gangs/cartels, prior bad acts, etc.

 

How much did Trump increase the debt?

 

Yeah, it's not like the GOP ever puts debt on the books or gives out welfare.

 

Health care costs could be cut by half if the ban on Medicare is lifted. The current problem is that the government (medical cartel) neither allows competition in the health care industry nor grant people access to insurance managed by the most powerful negotiator (Medicare).

 

Reading is tough I guess. Has anyone claimed Trump reduced the national debt? I see the left bashing Trump for 7T increase, mostly due to covid relief, which saved the employees from coast to coast. Then I see little talk from the left about Biden already increasing 8T in 3 years.

 

Then you're not paying attention. There have been several proposals of spending cuts over the years ranging from if you propose new spending it has to be mirrored with a cut. Across the board X% cut would be the least evasive and could achieve a massive cut overall but that'll never happen because both sides want their cake. Then there's all the fighting about annual increases in programs and simply holding those flat would be a natural 2 to 3% cut. Bottom line is that both sides are going to stand firm until we hit a big crash and it's coming. When net interest costs exceed federal spending, you better believe the inevitable crash will be devastating. This is trending to happen within the next 10 years.

 

Me... personally... I think we need to cut our military budget.. Not a little... ALLOT. We have based scattered across the globe and are in nations that we absolutely no longer need to be in. I also think that we are the cause of nearly all major conflicts around the globe. We need to stop being the instigator and need to finally get our military industrial complex in check. We are the worlds largest arms dealer and business is booming at tax payer expense.

Next... and an easy fix in my humble opinion, is our procurement process. It's so marred in red tape that the average cost to purchase items is at times 1000x greater than the average purchase price.

I also think we need to stop breeding generational welfare. There is such a dependency on the government teat that we need to find a way to get people capable of earning a good living on their own. I've always advocated that in order to get federal benefits, capable people should work within the government and learn a skill/craft that could be transition into the labor force or even a career in a federal institution.

For profit Private prison need to GO THE F away. These private prisons incarcerate prisoners vastly longer, at tax payer expense. There should NEVER be a for profit when it comes to the prison system.

Lobbyist need to be abolished. Having ologarchs dictate policy in this nation is beyond egregious!

 

Being in healthcare in some capacity (finance)... I can't tell you how disgusted I've become on how corrupt the insurance and medical system is.... Since ACA was implemented, healthcare cost has risen at least 4 times the nominal rate. Medical bankruptcies are once again on the rise and many people with HSA do not get needed medical attention due to the OOP cost. Hence a reason our life expectancy in the US is shrinking... Not growing.

 

Here's some interesting FACTS.

"Comparing a country’s debt to its gross domestic product (GDP) reveals the country’s ability to pay down its debt. This ratio is considered a better indicator of a country’s fiscal situation than just the national debt number because it shows the burden of debt relative to the country’s total economic output and therefore its ability to repay it."



"The national debt can be broken down by whether it is non-marketable or marketable and whether it is debt held by the public or debt held by the government itself (known as intragovernmental)."




So truthfully we owe ourselves 27 Trillion dollars and the Government owes itself 7 Trillion dollars. If you look at debt growth since 1791 it had been pretty constant. Reagan took debt growth exponential and it's been exponential ever since.


At this point getting in a pissing contest over who's worse is fruitless. The debt can never be repaid.

The last table should be labeled "in Trillions rounded"
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/national-debt/
https://www.investopedia.com/us-national-debt-by-year-7499291

 

Do you mean "keep up with"?

Which, by and large we owe to ourselves.

I disagree that is surely will "crash". The dollar has a negative value compared to when the FED took over. The FED has failed in it's "mission" to stabilize the dollar and economy; not by a little but, TOTALLY! The Dollar MIGHT have already crashed were it not for the fact that the U.S. economy IS (still) the strongest economy in the world AND we have the most powerful military in the world by a factor of, at least, 10.

Actually since the U.S. debt cannot be repaid, nor the debt of any nation with a Central Bank, it's apparent that the "Jig is up" for all monetary systems or "THE WORLDS" monetary system.of the world. Central banks or THE CENTRAL BANK of the world has pushed their system to the limit. That's why we are seeing so much press, recently, about "Modern Monetary Theory".

IMHO as long as We The People stay true to our Constitution, fund our Military and don't allow our government to devolve into an Autocracy ... The Dollar and American dominance are assured. The only things to be determined is how big a slice the wealthy get and how little the poor will put up with.

We've been playing with Monopoly money since Nixon. Enough people now realize that, to the point that it's going to force the Banksters to redefine the game.

 

I think we can cut our military budget if we apply the same "waste, fraud, and abuse" to the US Military Industrial Complex. Let's take the F35 for instance. The number of issues on that plane is still counting and has increased the initial price per plane to its current price by 45% or so. We can look at the USS Ford, the F22, the Seawolf, the literal combat ships, and so forth. All of these were/are great ideas and concepts for their time, but the US Military Industrial Complex wants us to fix their problems, which is why the procurement military budget is so damn expensive. Even the new FFX will cost more than all the other frigate classes combined in today's dollars. We could also go from a defined benefit plan for the US military to a 401k plan, similar to what Ronald Reagan did when he changed the federal civil service retirement system from CERS, a defined benefit plan similar to the US Military, to FERS, where we still have a pension plus a 401k plan. And you also need to look at benefits the military provides from Tricare healthcare to offbase housing and other things. Military pay can get complicated with added danger pay, hazardous pay, combat pay, and so forth which is in addition to the basic military pay one gets based on rank and years of service.

Yes, we have over 270 military installations across the globe. The largest is in Okinawa, Japan, I believe. We have 28000 troops in Korea. Some 50,000 in Japan. These are strategically located because of North Korea and China even though both South Korea and Japan have very capable forces, but could be overwhelmed by Chinese/NK forces if they choose to since it will take too long to respond if they were located in San Diego for instance. Thus, we have global interests around the world, and that has been the case since the end of WW2, the communist red scare, and now other adversaries who threaten our interests. It is why we have naval task forces in or near the Gulf of Aman, near Iran to protect the shipping with an international presence from time to time. Really want to screw up the US Economy, have the Suez Canal closed today, and see what happens to our economy and others, especially Europe. We will be in a recession faster than you can say a New York minute. So, the question is what should you consider not worth a US presence? the ME? Korean Peninsula? Japan? Europe? Africa which has mostly medical personnel? where? And if you think the two great ponds are going to protect, they won't. NK already can launch an ICBM that can reach us. So can China. So can Russia. And we can reach them too. But once one of them launches, then we all launch, in mutually assured destruction.

It is hard to get out of welfare. But we need more educational assistance other than loans. This would mean huge state and federal investments into programs that will offer better jobs, better pay that will get them off welfare. This will apply to both children and the parents. The parents are on welfare because they can't make ends meet for their children, and the children are stigmatized by being on welfare to begin with, thus creating a dependency. For the parents, the job has to be good enough so that not only can they work and will work, but that they make enough money to even pay for the expensive daycare that their small children may need to be enrolled in, all paid for by the government in one form or another. You need to look long-term for the investment because eventually, that investment will go down after a few short years.

 

I think that there needs to be some incentive for investments. I think that the current cap gains rates are appropriate right now. The only problem I have with it is when that is your only income (Warren Buffett, etc). I would be OK with some system that if you are getting over $1 million in cap gains, then it turns into regular earned income and taxed at the higher levels. Of course they would find some other way around it. That's why, in the end, the FairTax is really the only system that could punish the upper levels to somewhat of a Democrat's acceptable limit.