4 Takeaways From a New Report on the National Debt

The Daily Signal ^ | June 25, 2019 | Justin Bogie

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

A new government report has given us a glimpse into our nation’s fiscal future, and the outlook is grim. Absent major reforms, America’s debt will only continue to balloon.

The Congressional Budget Office released its updated long-term budget report on Tuesday, which projects the nation’s fiscal situation for the next 30 years.

Despite the strong economy, the nation remains in a precarious and unsustainable budget position, just as it was last year. Debt held by the public is set to rise to nearly one and a half times the size of the economy in the coming decades.

The report also highlights the high stakes of issues sitting before Congress—namely, whether or not lawmakers pass another budget deal to raise spending caps for fiscal year 2020 and beyond.

The current proposal put forth by House Democrats would raise spending by at least $357 billion over two years, driving long-term debt even higher.

The bottom line is this: If Congress is to avoid a debt crisis, it must implement strong spending restraints now. The first step is to reject the deal proposed by House Democrats. Instead, Congress ought to prioritize essential federal functions, like national defense, and cut wasteful and duplicative domestic programs that the federal government should have no role in.

Over the long term, cuts to discretionary spending won’t be enough to stabilize the debt.

The true drivers of debt are our major entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Reforming these programs is essential if the country is to avoid a debt crisis and preserve these programs for the long term.

Here are four key takeaways from the report:

[OIFVeteran]

Ok? So Obummer did it better than Reagan. One of the reasons he did is because he took a page from the republicans play book and lowered taxes while increasing spending. Remember the temporary lowering of the social security tax?

The bottom line is that the deficit and debt started to skyrocket under Reagan and continued to (with a brief leveling off during Clinton’s last years) since. Look at any graph of the debt and deficit since 1900 and it will jump out at you.

Cutting taxes and increasing spending does not balance the budget or decrease the debt.

[TBP]

Again, time after time, cutting taxes grows the economy. And over the years, they pay for themselves.

Clinton’s “growth” was illusory — it was mostly the tech bubble. Raising taxes will slow the economy and reduce growth.

When you tax something, you get less of it. That applies to wealth creation as much as anything else. The more you tax it, the less of it you get. We will never tax ourselves to prosperity, and we will never reduce the deficit by raising taxes.