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If this were a really pressing problem, the dollar wouldn't be such a strong currency. It is a problem, but we had balanced budgets in the '90s and there are m

If this were a really pressing problem, the dollar wouldn't be such a strong currency. It is a problem, but we had balanced budgets in the '90s and there are many ways we could do that again: - Start bringing back some of the taxes we had in the 1950s, when the country actually grew faster. - Make people pay sst up to a higher level of income and / or means test the benefit. - Don't spend like $3T in forever wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. - Let Japan and Germany pick up more of the defense bill. As an American, I actually don't like this idea much. How about: Let an inevitable recession in China and emboldened NATO be the cause of military reform to save costs.

seibelj 4y ago
All sides of the political spectrum do this but it’s hilarious to me the “The 1950’s were amazing and we had high income taxes!” and ignore all the other things - like the entire world was bombed to shit and the seeds of stagflation were planted then.
- ejstronge 4y ago
  How do you link the 1950s to stagflation? Are there any articles on this idea that you recommend?
  - strawhatguy 4y ago
    Not op, I’d have to look. Generally though the seeds of a downturn don’t happen then, they happen during the boom times, when everything seems great. It’s the biggest issue I have with Keynesian school of thought: the answer to get out of a downturn is to gov spend more, but it ignores what happens in the boom times (in which gov also spends more these days). Meanwhile growth, even in good times, has been slowing. Used to be 3-4%/year 30 years ago, more like 1-2% now. And still the calls are for spending more. I don’t know when exactly we’ll stop growing altogether, could be 100 years from now, but with all the gov spending, we sure want to find out!
- dwater 4y ago
  Well, the entire rest of the industrialized world was bombed to shit and the US was not only untouched but also had been ramping up production as much as possible for 5 years. It's pretty much an ideal situation for a large economy when all of your competitors have destroyed each other and now everyone has to look to buy their rebuilding supplies from you.
apropos_g 4y ago
> Start bringing back some of the taxes we had in the 1950s, when the country actually grew faster. There's no common sense reason this would reduce government interest payments. There are many common sense reasons it would specifically not impact interest payments. For example, if we can carry the interest load on the current tax base just fine, increasing taxes will cause spending to rise, not stay the same. Also, if rising taxes are perceived as anti-corporate, bond prices will fall, and interest payments will rise anyway. > Don't spend like $3T in forever wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. One perspective of the military is that it is welfare that is acceptable to Republicans. The vast majority of that cash was spent in the USA. You can make a tired reference to moving cash overseas, however many billions it was. But you are ignoring the main point. > Let Japan and Germany pick up more of the defense bill. What if military spending were welfare, for the most part? Like 999/1,000 DoD employees will not be in a meaningful defense or combat role. What if you live in a shithole and life was shitty and you needed an out? You join the military. What if you're just broke? You join the military. It's culturally acceptable welfare for the vast majority of people. Social media has robbed people of their common sense.
- georgeecollins 4y ago
  >> There's no common sense reason this would reduce government interest payments. When you run a budget surplus, you pay down debt. When you have less debt you pay less interest. You are like bringing back the Laffer curve to argue that maybe raising taxes wouldn't reduce debt. Historically it generally has, logically it would.
  - twelve40 4y ago
    How is it possible to even begin to repay $31 trillion? What kind of budget surplus would help put a dent into interest on that amount? That number is bigger than the entire annual GDP, let alone budget, let alone any hypothetical budget surplus.
    - eganist 4y ago
      Eh, the last budget surplus we had was in 2001 (a hair over 100bln). And while it'll be impossible to sustain that without politicians carving out what they want out of it, the 90s were a period where we sustained or crept our total debt load down ever so slightly, at least before 9/11.
brnaftr361 4y ago
The dollar, in many ways, is such a strong currency because we pick up the bill for world policing, and also we are the ones to police it. Which also explains why we continue to spend heavily on military. And just looking at DXY, anyone of [political/economic] consequence looks like they're ahead of us in the race to the bottom... For now.

seibelj 4y ago

All sides of the political spectrum do this but it’s hilarious to me the “The 1950’s were amazing and we had high income taxes!” and ignore all the other things - like the entire world was bombed to shit and the seeds of stagflation were planted then.

ejstronge 4y ago
How do you link the 1950s to stagflation? Are there any articles on this idea that you recommend?
- strawhatguy 4y ago
  Not op, I’d have to look. Generally though the seeds of a downturn don’t happen then, they happen during the boom times, when everything seems great. It’s the biggest issue I have with Keynesian school of thought: the answer to get out of a downturn is to gov spend more, but it ignores what happens in the boom times (in which gov also spends more these days). Meanwhile growth, even in good times, has been slowing. Used to be 3-4%/year 30 years ago, more like 1-2% now. And still the calls are for spending more. I don’t know when exactly we’ll stop growing altogether, could be 100 years from now, but with all the gov spending, we sure want to find out!
dwater 4y ago
Well, the entire rest of the industrialized world was bombed to shit and the US was not only untouched but also had been ramping up production as much as possible for 5 years. It's pretty much an ideal situation for a large economy when all of your competitors have destroyed each other and now everyone has to look to buy their rebuilding supplies from you.

apropos_g 4y ago

> Start bringing back some of the taxes we had in the 1950s, when the country actually grew faster. There's no common sense reason this would reduce government interest payments. There are many common sense reasons it would specifically not impact interest payments. For example, if we can carry the interest load on the current tax base just fine, increasing taxes will cause spending to rise, not stay the same. Also, if rising taxes are perceived as anti-corporate, bond prices will fall, and interest payments will rise anyway. > Don't spend like $3T in forever wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. One perspective of the military is that it is welfare that is acceptable to Republicans. The vast majority of that cash was spent in the USA. You can make a tired reference to moving cash overseas, however many billions it was. But you are ignoring the main point. > Let Japan and Germany pick up more of the defense bill. What if military spending were welfare, for the most part? Like 999/1,000 DoD employees will not be in a meaningful defense or combat role. What if you live in a shithole and life was shitty and you needed an out? You join the military. What if you're just broke? You join the military. It's culturally acceptable welfare for the vast majority of people. Social media has robbed people of their common sense.

georgeecollins 4y ago
>> There's no common sense reason this would reduce government interest payments. When you run a budget surplus, you pay down debt. When you have less debt you pay less interest. You are like bringing back the Laffer curve to argue that maybe raising taxes wouldn't reduce debt. Historically it generally has, logically it would.
- twelve40 4y ago
  How is it possible to even begin to repay $31 trillion? What kind of budget surplus would help put a dent into interest on that amount? That number is bigger than the entire annual GDP, let alone budget, let alone any hypothetical budget surplus.
  - eganist 4y ago
    Eh, the last budget surplus we had was in 2001 (a hair over 100bln). And while it'll be impossible to sustain that without politicians carving out what they want out of it, the 90s were a period where we sustained or crept our total debt load down ever so slightly, at least before 9/11.

brnaftr361 4y ago

The dollar, in many ways, is such a strong currency because we pick up the bill for world policing, and also we are the ones to police it. Which also explains why we continue to spend heavily on military. And just looking at DXY, anyone of [political/economic] consequence looks like they're ahead of us in the race to the bottom... For now.