Posted on 06/20/2024 7:54:16 AM PDT by RicocheT
You may have heard that the 2017 GOP tax cuts blew a giant hole in the federal budget—or so Democrats tell voters. The Congressional Budget Office’s revised 10-year budget forecast out Tuesday offers a reality check.
Spending is the real problem, and it’s getting worse. CBO projects that this year’s budget deficit will clock in at roughly $2 trillion, some $400 billion more than it forecast in February and $300 billion larger than last year’s deficit. This is unprecedented when the economy is growing and defense spending is nearly flat. The deficit this fiscal year will be 7% of GDP, which is more than during some recessions. CBO says deficits will stay nearly this high for years, and the total over the next decade is now expected to total $21.9 trillion compared to $19.8 trillion in its February forecast. Debt held by the public will grow to 122.4% of GDP in 2034 from 97.3% last year. Notably, CBO’s revenue projections are little changed. Revenue is expected to total 17.2% of GDP this year—roughly the 50-year average before the pandemic, as the nearby chart shows. But CBO significantly revised up projections for federal spending. Outlays are now expected to hit 24.2% of GDP this year and average 24% over the next decade.
CBO notes that one culprit for the larger deficit this year is Congress’s recent military aid bill. But overall defense spending is still falling as a share of the economy and is expected to hit a postwar low of 2.8% of GDP in 2034. Spending on Affordable Care Act subsidies and Medicaid is also exceeding earlier projections owing to higher enrollments.
The recent surge in immigration—migrants qualify for premium tax credits— has boosted enrollment. The result: ACA subsidies this year will cost more than double pre-pandemic projections.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I think the right strategy for solving it is to forgive all student loans.
US federal debt plus the states and local debt over $ 210 Trillion. = unfunded liabilities.
The U.S. federal government debt is rising by $1 trillion about every 100 days
The federal debt and deficit spending, are never problems. Debt is just a word, and words are never problematic. Debt is imaginary, especially when it can go up with imaginary spending, and imaginary spending is spending that government never considers having to repay if it goes into the hole known as the national debt. So, we have an imaginary debt, which nobody pays attention to, and which can receive more debt with no consequences. No consequences means that the debt can go to an infinite number, and nobody will know or even care about.
This problem is not sudden. It has been warned about for some years, and just ignored (kicked down the road) even in Trump’s term.
You have to kill some Fed agencies (Dep of Ed and HUD), end many federal bureacracy handouts (grants), slash federal departments staffs and expenses, end every Biden program enacted the last three years, reorganize who pays what for Medicaid, between the federal purse and the states, making it funded mostly by the states, restrict the federal share of Medicaid to NOT a % of the state’s Medicaid cost (claims) but to an amount that is no more than a % of the median claims costs across all the states (making states with higher medicaid costs pay more of those higher costs themselves), just for starters. Then you have to “reform” (amend, adjust, change) what to do with SS and Medicare as well.
But none of that will pay down the existing debt that greatly soon enough. You have to sell, to Americans and Americans only, large amounts of federal lands west of the Mississippi and direct the proceeds as resticted to actually paying off as much of the federal debt as possible, until the interest on the debt is shrunk to where it is not one of the largest annual federal expenses, which it is today.
Oh come on man, as long as we have the Den of Vipers at the Fed ready, willing and able to create all the money we want to spend, how could it be a problem?
What happens when the creditor wants to collect with interest?
National bankruptcy is not an “if” it’s a “when”.
Politicians who promise the most goodies will always win, until there are no more goodies.
Weapons grade DUH!
LOL…best explanation yet! You should consider a career as a political consultant. I’d wager Harris would hire you in a heartbeat.
...so the thieves can continue to enjoy the opulent fruits of their fraud...in peace.
When the thieves die ...the system will collapse.
...unless a new generation of thieves find a way to keep the Ponzi scheme going.
“crucial as to getting the U.S. federal government to reduce federal spending”
***************
Neither party will step up to do it.
Hi.
Has anyone pinged Capt Obvious?
5.56mm
"Soaring U.S. Debt Is a Spending Problem"
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Soaring federal debt is not the root cause of our economic problems imo.
Most voters who actually pay taxes, including rich taxpayers, have probably never been taught that the Constitution's drafters had left the care of the people to the states, not the constitutionally limited power federal government that now unconstitutionally taxes and spends for anything it pleases.
In fact, the congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had clarified unique state power to care for the people.
”Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government [emphases added]. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)
The reason that taxpayers are now paying lots of unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that Congress cannot reasonably justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers, is the direct consequence of the repealable 16th (16A; direct taxes) and 17th (17A; popular voting for federal senators) Amendments (16&17A) imo.
More specifically, one reason that the constitutional delegates had established the Senate is so that they would kill unconstitutional, vote-buying House tax bills that not only steal state powers, but also state revenues uniquely associated with those powers.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
In fact, the drafters had given the power to vote for federal senators uniquely to state legislators, not ordinary qualified citizen voters like 17A does, so that state legislators could elect federal senators whom they could trust to protect their respective states by killing unconstitutional appropriations bills that effectively steal state revenues.
H O W E V E R ...
The Progressive Era 16th and 17th Amendments effectively "nuked" these original constitutional safeguards against unconstitutional federal taxes.
More specifically, post-17A lawmakers learned that they could promise voters who are mostly clueless about the fed's constitutionally limited powers every unconstitutional federal social spending program under the sun, misguided voters usually taking the bait and electing these crooks, such spending based on abuse of Congress's 16A powers.
"16th Amendment : The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived [emphasis added], without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
(Again) "Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
“If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous, (as for instance, for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles [emphases added].” — Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2 (1833).
(Again) ”Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government [emphases added]. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)
Pelosi: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." (non-FR; 6 sec.)
Democrats [and RINOs] Are Terrified Of An Educated And Informed Public (3.12.23)
So while I usually bash corrupt Congress as the problem with unconstitutionally big federal government, it's misguided voters abusing their 17A powers that's the main problem imo.
Trump's tsunami of Democratic and Republican supporters need to support hopeful Trump 47 with a new Congress in November so that he will not be a lame duck president from the first day of his 2nd term, Congress supporting him to quickly finish draining the swamp.
New lawmakers additionally need to support Trump in leading the states to put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes and unconstitutional interference in the affairs of the sovereign states.
More specifically, Trump needs to lead ALL the states need to effectively "secede" from the tyrannical federal government by repealing 16&17A.
Consider the repealing of 16&17A as part of reparations for victim taxpayers of the corrupt federal government for having to pay a lifetime of unconstitutional federal taxes.
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