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Austerity has repeatably been shown to kill economic growth and trigger recessions/depressions. Yet for whatever reason there is one party in congress who's ent

Austerity has repeatably been shown to kill economic growth and trigger recessions/depressions. Yet for whatever reason there is one party in congress who's entire economic policy is basically austerity measures. Repeatedly, the ax man comes in and cuts spending that generates multiples of economic activity in return. This happens all the time cut a $1 here and it costs $4 over there kinds of things. Infrastructure is frequently in this category, delay maintenance until it can't be repaired, or simply fail to invest until a road/bridge is gridlock 18 hours a day, or the train is to scary to ride. The current admin is doing this 10x because they aren't being smart about what they cut, just doing it for political points. Is there government waste? Sure, but that requires micro tweaks, aka instead of hiring more TSA agents maybe decide they shouldn't be randomly selecting every 3rd precheck user for additional screening/etc, or maybe decide that investing in even slower scanners isn't the right choice. Plus, in TX having seen some of these contracts the city/state gives out, the idea that private industry is more efficient is laughable. In some cases they are basically contracting out for millions of dollars a year a job that could be handled by one or two actual government employees paid less than $100k a year.

babypuncher 1y ago
Well at least the billionaire class got their massive tax cut, that's what is important. Buying food may get more difficult for the rest of us, but at least Jeff Bezos can buy another megayacht, and I'm happy for him about that.
- xrd 1y ago
  Me too. Since he migrated his wealth from the place he earned it for thirty years to a tax haven in Florida the realities are different. With warming tropical waters, he will need to spend more money on a yacht that can handle the bigger storms. It's not a problem you or I need to worry about, but he does, and that's probably why he is a billionaire and I'm not.
yepitwas 1y ago
A lot of current conservative grousing about the deficit is priming the electorate for destroying social security. That's why they always highlight it as the main cause of the deficit, even though it has a totally separate income stream from the rest of the budget. Republicans have done the exact opposite of balancing the budget at least since Reagan (inclusive) non-stop, zero R presidents have even done as well as democrats at pursuing a balanced budget since then, so they're not serious about it, including and perhaps especially Trump—but they really, really want to get their hands on social security, it's so much money out of the hands of rich people that they just can't stand it.
- throw912 1y ago
  Expect this to get much worse soon. Even left-leaning youth will probably start to agree with the idea of destroying it out of spite, and even if they know it won't actually help them. At some point we'll have to admit, it's not easy to explain why youth need to subsidize things for an older generation that enjoys housing, healthcare, and stocks when they themselves have not had the disposable income for any of that. Scott Galloway has a ted-talk where he calls it generational theft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEJ4hkpQW8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEJ4hkpQW8E
  - Belopolye 1y ago
    The boomers ate the seed corn.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    I've heard this type of thing all my life. The generation that screwed the youth has changed, but there was always such talk.
- chrisco255 1y ago
  No party's platform is based on ending or destroying social security, especially not the GOP who gets a broad base of support from retirees. That being said, I've never had much faith in it being around for myself, though I'm 30 years from eligibility). It's possible that productivity boosts from automation and AI could overtime make SS actually sustainable in spite of overwhelming boomer population to support. The federal tax revenue as percentage of GDP is remarkably stable regardless of widely varying income tax rates over the decades (ranging 15-20% since the 1940s): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ockN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ockN. This holds up no matter which regime (D or R) is dominant, because the economy reorganizes itself around incentives or disincentives created by various tax policies.
coldpie 1y ago
> This happens all the time cut a $1 here and it costs $4 over there The thing that makes these policies work, of course, is the $1 is cut from a billionaire's taxes, and the $4 is paid by the rest of us. Voters seem to like this policy, for reasons that are beyond me.
- rchaud 1y ago
  "Austerity" lays the political groundwork for tax cuts for the rich. Austerity never affects military or police budgets though, we're happy to increase the debt to finance those.

babypuncher 1y ago

Well at least the billionaire class got their massive tax cut, that's what is important. Buying food may get more difficult for the rest of us, but at least Jeff Bezos can buy another megayacht, and I'm happy for him about that.

xrd 1y ago
Me too. Since he migrated his wealth from the place he earned it for thirty years to a tax haven in Florida the realities are different. With warming tropical waters, he will need to spend more money on a yacht that can handle the bigger storms. It's not a problem you or I need to worry about, but he does, and that's probably why he is a billionaire and I'm not.

yepitwas 1y ago

A lot of current conservative grousing about the deficit is priming the electorate for destroying social security. That's why they always highlight it as the main cause of the deficit, even though it has a totally separate income stream from the rest of the budget. Republicans have done the exact opposite of balancing the budget at least since Reagan (inclusive) non-stop, zero R presidents have even done as well as democrats at pursuing a balanced budget since then, so they're not serious about it, including and perhaps especially Trump—but they really, really want to get their hands on social security, it's so much money out of the hands of rich people that they just can't stand it.

throw912 1y ago
Expect this to get much worse soon. Even left-leaning youth will probably start to agree with the idea of destroying it out of spite, and even if they know it won't actually help them. At some point we'll have to admit, it's not easy to explain why youth need to subsidize things for an older generation that enjoys housing, healthcare, and stocks when they themselves have not had the disposable income for any of that. Scott Galloway has a ted-talk where he calls it generational theft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEJ4hkpQW8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEJ4hkpQW8E
- Belopolye 1y ago
  The boomers ate the seed corn.
- bluGill 1y ago
  I've heard this type of thing all my life. The generation that screwed the youth has changed, but there was always such talk.
chrisco255 1y ago
No party's platform is based on ending or destroying social security, especially not the GOP who gets a broad base of support from retirees. That being said, I've never had much faith in it being around for myself, though I'm 30 years from eligibility). It's possible that productivity boosts from automation and AI could overtime make SS actually sustainable in spite of overwhelming boomer population to support. The federal tax revenue as percentage of GDP is remarkably stable regardless of widely varying income tax rates over the decades (ranging 15-20% since the 1940s): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ockN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ockN. This holds up no matter which regime (D or R) is dominant, because the economy reorganizes itself around incentives or disincentives created by various tax policies.

coldpie 1y ago

> This happens all the time cut a $1 here and it costs $4 over there The thing that makes these policies work, of course, is the $1 is cut from a billionaire's taxes, and the $4 is paid by the rest of us. Voters seem to like this policy, for reasons that are beyond me.

rchaud 1y ago
"Austerity" lays the political groundwork for tax cuts for the rich. Austerity never affects military or police budgets though, we're happy to increase the debt to finance those.