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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33915 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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It is a spending problem; not a taxing problem.

Spending more than you tax just hides the tax in inflation! Trump's tax cut just arbitrarily redistributes from the kind of workers who don't take overtime to the kind who do. This is silly. But it, like 'no taxes on tips', is a gimmick that appeals to voters in a way that 'i will lower your taxes by 2.73%' doesn't.

Progressives would say the opposite. Any realistic scenario getting the US back to fiscal prudence will involve both.

There's no realistic scenario for that. Americans would have to give up attempts at world hegemony and lower welfare while increasing taxation.

Either is politically impossible.

The US did it in the 90's so I see no reason why it'd be impossible.

Because US thought they had no competition. If you proposed lowering defense budgets now you'd be called a traitor selling out global freedom to the Chinese.

Progressives who don't admit that spending needs to be brought to at least stratospheric rather than deep-space levels are simply economically illiterate. Realistically it's more or less impossible to solve the entitlements issue without raising taxes(in the first place, eliminating the social security tax on contributions), and so we need to do both. But hard right budgets usually can balance out without tax increases, they're just pure fantasia politically.

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