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Why do you want the debt paid off? The debt has been growing for 50 years, has life gotten worse during those 50 years? What happens if we don't pay off the d

Why do you want the debt paid off? The debt has been growing for 50 years, has life gotten worse during those 50 years? What happens if we don't pay off the debt?

missedthecue 1y ago
Eventually the interest payments crowd out most other government spending, or require significant across the board tax increases to maintain current levels of spend. The US is currently at $1T+ a year in tax revenues that instantly go right out the door toward paying bond interest. It will likely be $2T within 10 years, even fewer if rates don't come down in that time. It's compounding and therefore exponential. Situations like Japan are even more dire. A small increase in the interest rate results in a HUGE increase in interest expense at 260% debt to GDP ratios. Worse, their population is naturally shrinking a million people a year on account of their decades-long birth rate implosion. Hard to outgrow that.
- maxerickson 1y ago
  It's more fun to think that it's the deficit that is going to the interest payments.
- Buttons840 1y ago
  So lets raise taxes now and pay it off. Who should we tax? Should we squeeze blood from stones and try to get the poor to pay more taxes, or should we tax the wealthy? Who am I kidding. The current administration showed us--what was it? last week?--that they prefer cutting taxes for the wealthy and increasing the deficit. Republicans ALWAYS increase the deficit. Democrats usually do, but not always. It looks like we'll probably let the generation that created this mess retire like normal, and instead try to fix it by making their children and grandchildren work until death.
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    Tax cuts for the wealthy were not in the BBB.
    - maxerickson 1y ago
      If the baseline is whatever you say it is, what's the point of discussing it with you?
      - WalterBright 1y ago
        The baseline is the current tax rate.
        maxerickson 1y ago
        The current tax rate for 2026?
        WalterBright 1y ago
        The tax rate for the wealthy is the same in 2026 as in 2025 as in 2024.
        maxerickson 1y ago
        Oh? And what would they have been without a change in the law this year?
        WalterBright 1y ago
        Not buying that the tax rates staying the same is a tax cut.
    - Buttons840 1y ago
      Are you saying that extending that Trump tax cuts is not a tax cut, because it's only extending and maintaining the status quo? Or are you saying the Trump tax cuts never benefited the wealthy at all?
  - missedthecue 1y ago
    It will probably have to look something like western Europe with massive across the board tax increases. I make $60k a year in the USA and my tax rates are about 12%, with no VAT. They'd probably need to look more like France, where a $60k income is hit with a 42% effective tax (adjusted for progressive rates) before 20% VAT is paid at the store.
    - fsckboy 1y ago
      vat is simply corporate income tax, it's a tax on "value added", i.e. profit or income. I don't know in europe whether that is on top of other corporate income tax or not.
      - lenerdenator 1y ago
        And they then pass that expense off to the consumer, because praise be to the shareholders.
        Buttons840 1y ago
        Companies can just raise prices without consequences? Is that free market competition in action? Snark aside. I've always heard the idea was that free markets and competition would drive down prices, and that if a company was to just raise their prices, they would actually lose money because people would buy from a competitor with better prices. Turns out companies can just raise prices though. What does it mean when the things that happen in a healthy free market aren't happening?
        lenerdenator 1y ago
        > Companies can just raise prices without consequences? Well, when they have a monopoly, yes, yes they can. > Is that free market competition in action? No.
      - MattPalmer1086 1y ago
        VAT is not corporate income tax, and it is not levied on profit or income. As a business, you can deduct VAT that you had to pay to others from the VAT you charged your customers, and you only pay the difference. So the only people who end up paying are the final consumers. It is essentially cost neutral to a business - you just have to account for it properly. UPDATE: in the UK, at least.
  - RickJWagner 1y ago
    You can’t tax the rich enough to pay off the debt. They already pay the overwhelming majority of taxes. One company alone— Berkshire Hathaway— paid almost $27 Billion in taxes for 2024. That’s about 5% of all corporate taxes paid. To really make money, you have to tax a bunch of smaller fish, not a handful of bigger fish. You need big numbers. That’s politically unpalatable, especially for Republicans. ( Though Democrats seem to have no appetite for it either. ) In the past, Republicans would cut taxes ( popular ) while not spending as much ( unpopular ). Democrats would not cut taxes ( unpopular ) while spending more ( popular ). Sadly, today both parties are acting like undisciplined parents. Everybody wants to give out the treats ( spend big ) while nobody wants to earn the paycheck ( raise the taxes ). It’s a bipartisan formula for disaster.
    - Buttons840 1y ago
      > You can’t tax the rich enough to pay off the debt. They already pay the overwhelming majority of taxes. Yes. This means that if we double the taxes on the wealthy we will roughly double our total taxes collected. A neat trick. It's true that the top 50% pay 97% of taxes, but that's not the slam dunk you think it is, because the top 50% have 97.5% of the wealth (see sources). Your suggestion to tax the poor is stupid, because the poor have nothing more to give. Even if we could extract 10x the amount of taxes from the poor, it would barely be a blip. If the bottom 50% paid 10x the taxes, then they'd be contributing, what, like 15% of all taxes? We're going to take from the poor, take food out of their mouths, for 15% more taxes? Like I said before, its like trying to squeeze blood from a stone, there's just nothing there to squeeze. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... https://usafacts.org/articles/who-owns-american-wealth/ https://usafacts.org/articles/who-owns-american-wealth/
      - fsckboy 1y ago
        >Yes. This means that if we double the taxes on the wealthy we will roughly double our total taxes collected. A neat trick. no, you won't, people change their financial decisions in the face of taxes. increasing taxes will slow the economy, bringing in a change of party in the whitehouse and congress, and taxes will be lowered again. high taxes don't work, and people don't like them. >It's true that the top 50% pay 97% of taxes, but that's not the slam dunk you think it is, because the top 50% have 97.5% of the wealth (see sources). taxes are on income, not wealth. the reason those percentage numbers and the wealth numbers come out the same is because poor people pay small or zero tax so it's as if their income is not counted higher taxes on the wealthy will not benefit the poor, their taxes don't get lowered. However slowing the economy does hurt the poor
- fsckboy 1y ago
  >Eventually the interest payments crowd out most other government spending false. you are neglecting economic growth which increases tax receipts but does not increase the debt. if government expenditure grows faster than economic growth, yes, bankruptcy is in the future.

Why do you want the debt paid off? The debt has been growing for 50 years, has life gotten worse during those 50 years? What happens if we don't pay off the debt?

missedthecue 1y ago

Eventually the interest payments crowd out most other government spending, or require significant across the board tax increases to maintain current levels of spend. The US is currently at $1T+ a year in tax revenues that instantly go right out the door toward paying bond interest. It will likely be $2T within 10 years, even fewer if rates don't come down in that time. It's compounding and therefore exponential. Situations like Japan are even more dire. A small increase in the interest rate results in a HUGE increase in interest expense at 260% debt to GDP ratios. Worse, their population is naturally shrinking a million people a year on account of their decades-long birth rate implosion. Hard to outgrow that.

maxerickson 1y ago
It's more fun to think that it's the deficit that is going to the interest payments.
Buttons840 1y ago
So lets raise taxes now and pay it off. Who should we tax? Should we squeeze blood from stones and try to get the poor to pay more taxes, or should we tax the wealthy? Who am I kidding. The current administration showed us--what was it? last week?--that they prefer cutting taxes for the wealthy and increasing the deficit. Republicans ALWAYS increase the deficit. Democrats usually do, but not always. It looks like we'll probably let the generation that created this mess retire like normal, and instead try to fix it by making their children and grandchildren work until death.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  Tax cuts for the wealthy were not in the BBB.
  - maxerickson 1y ago
    If the baseline is whatever you say it is, what's the point of discussing it with you?
    - WalterBright 1y ago
      The baseline is the current tax rate.
      - maxerickson 1y ago
        The current tax rate for 2026?
        WalterBright 1y ago
        The tax rate for the wealthy is the same in 2026 as in 2025 as in 2024.
        maxerickson 1y ago
        Oh? And what would they have been without a change in the law this year?
        WalterBright 1y ago
        Not buying that the tax rates staying the same is a tax cut.
  - Buttons840 1y ago
    Are you saying that extending that Trump tax cuts is not a tax cut, because it's only extending and maintaining the status quo? Or are you saying the Trump tax cuts never benefited the wealthy at all?
- missedthecue 1y ago
  It will probably have to look something like western Europe with massive across the board tax increases. I make $60k a year in the USA and my tax rates are about 12%, with no VAT. They'd probably need to look more like France, where a $60k income is hit with a 42% effective tax (adjusted for progressive rates) before 20% VAT is paid at the store.
  - fsckboy 1y ago
    vat is simply corporate income tax, it's a tax on "value added", i.e. profit or income. I don't know in europe whether that is on top of other corporate income tax or not.
    - lenerdenator 1y ago
      And they then pass that expense off to the consumer, because praise be to the shareholders.
      - Buttons840 1y ago
        Companies can just raise prices without consequences? Is that free market competition in action? Snark aside. I've always heard the idea was that free markets and competition would drive down prices, and that if a company was to just raise their prices, they would actually lose money because people would buy from a competitor with better prices. Turns out companies can just raise prices though. What does it mean when the things that happen in a healthy free market aren't happening?
        lenerdenator 1y ago
        > Companies can just raise prices without consequences? Well, when they have a monopoly, yes, yes they can. > Is that free market competition in action? No.
    - MattPalmer1086 1y ago
      VAT is not corporate income tax, and it is not levied on profit or income. As a business, you can deduct VAT that you had to pay to others from the VAT you charged your customers, and you only pay the difference. So the only people who end up paying are the final consumers. It is essentially cost neutral to a business - you just have to account for it properly. UPDATE: in the UK, at least.
- RickJWagner 1y ago
  You can’t tax the rich enough to pay off the debt. They already pay the overwhelming majority of taxes. One company alone— Berkshire Hathaway— paid almost $27 Billion in taxes for 2024. That’s about 5% of all corporate taxes paid. To really make money, you have to tax a bunch of smaller fish, not a handful of bigger fish. You need big numbers. That’s politically unpalatable, especially for Republicans. ( Though Democrats seem to have no appetite for it either. ) In the past, Republicans would cut taxes ( popular ) while not spending as much ( unpopular ). Democrats would not cut taxes ( unpopular ) while spending more ( popular ). Sadly, today both parties are acting like undisciplined parents. Everybody wants to give out the treats ( spend big ) while nobody wants to earn the paycheck ( raise the taxes ). It’s a bipartisan formula for disaster.
  - Buttons840 1y ago
    > You can’t tax the rich enough to pay off the debt. They already pay the overwhelming majority of taxes. Yes. This means that if we double the taxes on the wealthy we will roughly double our total taxes collected. A neat trick. It's true that the top 50% pay 97% of taxes, but that's not the slam dunk you think it is, because the top 50% have 97.5% of the wealth (see sources). Your suggestion to tax the poor is stupid, because the poor have nothing more to give. Even if we could extract 10x the amount of taxes from the poor, it would barely be a blip. If the bottom 50% paid 10x the taxes, then they'd be contributing, what, like 15% of all taxes? We're going to take from the poor, take food out of their mouths, for 15% more taxes? Like I said before, its like trying to squeeze blood from a stone, there's just nothing there to squeeze. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... https://usafacts.org/articles/who-owns-american-wealth/ https://usafacts.org/articles/who-owns-american-wealth/
    - fsckboy 1y ago
      >Yes. This means that if we double the taxes on the wealthy we will roughly double our total taxes collected. A neat trick. no, you won't, people change their financial decisions in the face of taxes. increasing taxes will slow the economy, bringing in a change of party in the whitehouse and congress, and taxes will be lowered again. high taxes don't work, and people don't like them. >It's true that the top 50% pay 97% of taxes, but that's not the slam dunk you think it is, because the top 50% have 97.5% of the wealth (see sources). taxes are on income, not wealth. the reason those percentage numbers and the wealth numbers come out the same is because poor people pay small or zero tax so it's as if their income is not counted higher taxes on the wealthy will not benefit the poor, their taxes don't get lowered. However slowing the economy does hurt the poor
fsckboy 1y ago
>Eventually the interest payments crowd out most other government spending false. you are neglecting economic growth which increases tax receipts but does not increase the debt. if government expenditure grows faster than economic growth, yes, bankruptcy is in the future.