Please advise if you cannot read this LA Times article published yesterday:
"No One Can Grasp Trillions"
The national debt keeps growing. Irresponsible presidents like Trump -- particularly Trump -- cannot stop deficit spending.
The GOP's idea as a means of chipping away at the problem -- and Trump's idea -- is to simply cut spending on the most costly programs while sustaining defense spending.
People like Elon Musk, whose companies have huge government defense or NASA contracts, know that they get significant slices of the defense and aerospace pies through their companies' sole-source contracts. Others who fall into that category will support taxation to some point because they think they "get their money back".
Everyone else was promised certain things in what seem like guarantees: a decent Social Security benefit; Medicare benefits for the elderly; veteran's benefits that may also subsidize medical or related needs like "aid and attendance" care; Medicaid benefits through states for the medically indigent.
After World War II, our leaders had the common sense to support these things through progressive taxation. We had avoided more dire socialist alternatives through labor unions and progressive taxation.
But the irresponsible impulses caused deficit spending to expand, and now here we are.
My hindsight prescription was contrary to the Dubya Bush presidency and it's impulses parallel to waging two wars: one unnecessary but for the inclinations of an oil industry bent on access to the Iraqi deposits,; and the other war with unreasonable expectations for nation-building in Afghanistan when an effective police action to capture Bin Laden should've been a rational scope of involvement. So, with those two wars and when it had always been thought prudent to raise taxes during wartime, Bush chose to lower taxes.
This is partly an underlying basis for electing a lunatic and criminal with his yes-men to the presidency.
The TIMES says that each taxpayer in the country -- on average -- owes about $240,000 toward this national debt. But the truth of the matter, knowing that a considerable majority of taxpayers can't possibly afford to pay such an amount, is that some would owe more and some would owe less under progressive taxation.
Elon doesn't want to lose some sizeable portion of his quarter-trillion in assets, and not feeling responsible for the "real Americans" promised those various benefits, he had his antic moment with the chain-saw, persisting in damaging the lives of civil servants whose salaries were only 4 % of the national budget.
The majority of GOP legislators simply choose not to give a damn about America's promises to its people, so they'd rather eliminate red-state advantages for getting more in federal spending than those states pay in taxes.
What needs to be done and who needs to step up to the plate to do it? I, for instance, could manage an additional $1,000 per year in personal taxation. But that's about the extent of what I consider a "comfortable sacrifice".
"No One Can Grasp Trillions"
The national debt keeps growing. Irresponsible presidents like Trump -- particularly Trump -- cannot stop deficit spending.
The GOP's idea as a means of chipping away at the problem -- and Trump's idea -- is to simply cut spending on the most costly programs while sustaining defense spending.
People like Elon Musk, whose companies have huge government defense or NASA contracts, know that they get significant slices of the defense and aerospace pies through their companies' sole-source contracts. Others who fall into that category will support taxation to some point because they think they "get their money back".
Everyone else was promised certain things in what seem like guarantees: a decent Social Security benefit; Medicare benefits for the elderly; veteran's benefits that may also subsidize medical or related needs like "aid and attendance" care; Medicaid benefits through states for the medically indigent.
After World War II, our leaders had the common sense to support these things through progressive taxation. We had avoided more dire socialist alternatives through labor unions and progressive taxation.
But the irresponsible impulses caused deficit spending to expand, and now here we are.
My hindsight prescription was contrary to the Dubya Bush presidency and it's impulses parallel to waging two wars: one unnecessary but for the inclinations of an oil industry bent on access to the Iraqi deposits,; and the other war with unreasonable expectations for nation-building in Afghanistan when an effective police action to capture Bin Laden should've been a rational scope of involvement. So, with those two wars and when it had always been thought prudent to raise taxes during wartime, Bush chose to lower taxes.
This is partly an underlying basis for electing a lunatic and criminal with his yes-men to the presidency.
The TIMES says that each taxpayer in the country -- on average -- owes about $240,000 toward this national debt. But the truth of the matter, knowing that a considerable majority of taxpayers can't possibly afford to pay such an amount, is that some would owe more and some would owe less under progressive taxation.
Elon doesn't want to lose some sizeable portion of his quarter-trillion in assets, and not feeling responsible for the "real Americans" promised those various benefits, he had his antic moment with the chain-saw, persisting in damaging the lives of civil servants whose salaries were only 4 % of the national budget.
The majority of GOP legislators simply choose not to give a damn about America's promises to its people, so they'd rather eliminate red-state advantages for getting more in federal spending than those states pay in taxes.
What needs to be done and who needs to step up to the plate to do it? I, for instance, could manage an additional $1,000 per year in personal taxation. But that's about the extent of what I consider a "comfortable sacrifice".