Good article. My brother often says "Post-war America is always pre-war America." America is in a perpetual state of war. War is all that any citizen under thirty has ever known. This sad condition not only leads the country into deeper debt. It reveals how utterly bereft we are of leadership willing and able to engage in diplomacy and a true estimation of what constitutes an actual threat to our national security. Currently, we resemble a conglomerate of self-interested corporations and billionaires with a vast, taxpayer-funded military at their disposal. As our prestige abroad continues to plummet, our leverage does, too, and the temptation to simply try to bomb our way out of predicaments only increases. Nothing will change until the leadership does.
At this point, I think of anyone who says that the budget problem is difficult to solve is just a billionaire apologist. These problems would be immensely easy to solve if we weren't living in a kleptocracy.
Raise the tax rates on the wealthy and corporations; problem solved. Remove the social security tax cap; problem solved. Those who say "this problem is complicated" have succumbed to the oligarchs propaganda: It's easy! We obviously need to raise revenue. Look at any macroeconomic chart since 1980 and the problem be comes glaringly obvious: The US political class has completely succumbed to the oligarchs. That is the real problem.
**Of course our nation should demand that the DoD pass an audit before giving them another dime, but that's a topic worth its own article.
re: "increased spending". tax cuts are also increased spending. TCJA and the BBB tax cuts ADD significantly to the defici and debt and we pay for those tax cuts by selling more treasury notes! It would be a good thing to also acknowledge this. Also, could we actually balance the budget if we did not pay for tax cuts?
Good article. My brother often says "Post-war America is always pre-war America." America is in a perpetual state of war. War is all that any citizen under thirty has ever known. This sad condition not only leads the country into deeper debt. It reveals how utterly bereft we are of leadership willing and able to engage in diplomacy and a true estimation of what constitutes an actual threat to our national security. Currently, we resemble a conglomerate of self-interested corporations and billionaires with a vast, taxpayer-funded military at their disposal. As our prestige abroad continues to plummet, our leverage does, too, and the temptation to simply try to bomb our way out of predicaments only increases. Nothing will change until the leadership does.
At this point, I think of anyone who says that the budget problem is difficult to solve is just a billionaire apologist. These problems would be immensely easy to solve if we weren't living in a kleptocracy.
Raise the tax rates on the wealthy and corporations; problem solved. Remove the social security tax cap; problem solved. Those who say "this problem is complicated" have succumbed to the oligarchs propaganda: It's easy! We obviously need to raise revenue. Look at any macroeconomic chart since 1980 and the problem be comes glaringly obvious: The US political class has completely succumbed to the oligarchs. That is the real problem.
**Of course our nation should demand that the DoD pass an audit before giving them another dime, but that's a topic worth its own article.
re: "increased spending". tax cuts are also increased spending. TCJA and the BBB tax cuts ADD significantly to the defici and debt and we pay for those tax cuts by selling more treasury notes! It would be a good thing to also acknowledge this. Also, could we actually balance the budget if we did not pay for tax cuts?