Budget deficit- As long as the percent of debt-to-GDP is shrinking as it is now, and we are investing in important things like defense, then we are moving in the right direction.
Regarding the Medicare/SS deficits, you are grossly mistaken, I am outspoken on this subject and I have written at least a dozen letters to politicians on this subject, and I think it is the #1 fiscal issue we face, and I have stated so repeatedly. So come off your high horse.
Regarding the trade deficit, there is more to that than meets the eye, and this is primarily an issue made up to look scary by protectionists and others who are against Free Trade. I think this is a relarively minor issue compared with the entitlements.
There will have to be an equally ugly tax collection arm under the FairTax, ya'll just won't acknowledge it.
"Budget deficit- As long as the percent of debt-to-GDP is shrinking as it is now, and we are investing in important things like defense, then we are moving in the right direction."
Ok, so it is ok that the economy is booming (your description, not mine) and we still have a deficit. So tell me, if we can't pay down some of the debt we have run up when the economy is booming, when can we pay it down?
"Regarding the Medicare/SS deficits, you are grossly mistaken, I am outspoken on this subject and I have written at least a dozen letters to politicians on this subject, and I think it is the #1 fiscal issue we face, and I have stated so repeatedly. So come off your high horse."
So just what is the solution that you have proposed in those dozen of letters? Private accounts?
"Regarding the trade deficit, there is more to that than meets the eye, and this is primarily an issue made up to look scary by protectionists and others who are against Free Trade. I think this is a relarively minor issue compared with the entitlements."
We are on a path which will take us to a $1 trillion trade deficit by the end of this decade. No country on earth has ever run these size trade deficits and economists almost universally warn that this is not a sustainable trend. Our manufacturing base is being destroyed and we are becoming primarily a service economy. That is one of the reasons that, even though unemployment is low, the middle class is under great pressure. So this is a "relatively minor issue"?
BTW, I am most certainly NOT a protectionist, but I believe that "free trade" should be on a level playing field. Ignoring the disadvantage that our tax system places our producers in in the global marketplace and pretending that an exploding trade deficit is insignificant is very shortsighted IMHO. I am reminded to those who ignored the hugely expanding P/E ratios during the technology bubble. The more experienced market watchers warned that these were unprecedented and that "trees don't grow to the sky". The younger tech investors countered that this was the "new economy" and these companies were growing so fast that they would "grow into" those P/Es. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see where that thinking led.
Do you follow the same kind of thinking in your personal finances? IOW do you just watch your debts mount up month after month and year after year and convince yourself that there won't ever be a day of reckoning?
"There will have to be an equally ugly tax collection arm under the FairTax, ya'll just won't acknowledge it."
Another unsupported assertion. You have a right to your opinion, but check out my tagline.