Democrats bringing back balanced budgets

[Mountain Man]

Starlight and crew seem to think that just because the House has a slight majority of democrats that the democrats now have free reign over the entire government.

Looking at Pelosi's new House rules, she seems to be under the same impression.

[Bill the Cat]

So much for my tax break...

[Starlight]

Unfortunately, politicians always see the "balancing of the budget" as a need to raise taxes, not cut spending.

Well PAYGO triggers automatic spending cuts across the board if there was an imbalance in the budget, so I guess you should like it.

When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep becomes your downfall.

The government budget is a bit different to a personal budget because the government has almost 100% control of its income - it can literally set taxes to whatever levels it likes on whatever things it likes. While you as a person/household have some control of your income as you can apply for higher-paying or additional jobs and so could your wife, those aren't guaranteed, whereas with the government they simply decree it and it's done. So most people personally operate in the space of "my income is relatively fixed, how much should I spend?" whereas governments operate in the space of "I can set both my income and my expenditures fairly arbitrarily, what should I set them at?"

[lilpixieofterror]

Well PAYGO triggers automatic spending cuts across the board if there was an imbalance in the budget, so I guess you should like it.

The government budget is a bit different to a personal budget because the government has almost 100% control of its income - it can literally set taxes to whatever levels it likes on whatever things it likes. While you as a person/household have some control of your income as you can apply for higher-paying or additional jobs and so could your wife, those aren't guaranteed, whereas with the government they simply decree it and it's done. So most people personally operate in the space of "my income is relatively fixed, how much should I spend?" whereas governments operate in the space of "I can set both my income and my expenditures fairly arbitrarily, what should I set them at?"

Scary thing is you think this is accurate.

[Sparko]

Well PAYGO triggers automatic spending cuts across the board if there was an imbalance in the budget, so I guess you should like it.

The government budget is a bit different to a personal budget because the government has almost 100% control of its income - it can literally set taxes to whatever levels it likes on whatever things it likes. While you as a person/household have some control of your income as you can apply for higher-paying or additional jobs and so could your wife, those aren't guaranteed, whereas with the government they simply decree it and it's done. So most people personally operate in the space of "my income is relatively fixed, how much should I spend?" whereas governments operate in the space of "I can set both my income and my expenditures fairly arbitrarily, what should I set them at?"

Yeah because just raising taxes so you can spend more or printing more money doesn't screw up the economy at all.

[Cow Poke]

Well PAYGO triggers automatic spending cuts....

The amazing thing is that you're actually EATING this crap they're feeding you.

Spending cuts are as foreign to our politicians as praising Jesus is to you!

[mikewhitney]

While I personally think that the US needs to raise taxes in general (not necessarily on you the US reader of this, but on some sort of companies or goods or services somewhere in the US economy - e.g. the estates of rich people after they die, or 1 cent on every Wall St trade performed, or on multinationals who move jobs overseas and hide their wealth in tax havens) because the total US government tax income is below that of other developed as a percentage of your economy, and the US has plenty of obvious things the government could be spending those taxes on (e.g. new infrastructure, healthcare, paying off federal debt), and while I think it is usually better to pay for large new expenditures out of new taxes and not put them on the credit card like Republicans have been doing under Bush and Trump, I do think it's important to have the option of political control over the levels of surplus/deficit, and that new and worthwhile programs to give people healthcare or education or improve infrastructure shouldn't necessarily be tied to specific tax-plans that weigh them down like a ball and chain around their legs when it comes to trying to sell them to the public.

You don't seem to understand that both parties are sponsored by the international corporations, foundations, and one-percent people. There is no way that anyone in congress is going to truly hit these groups with any significant tax increase. If we weren't interacting with the Federal Reserve for getting money, we wouldn't likely have this current debt; if another country (also one which is smaller and has a more unified population) is free of such debt and has a population who, as a whole, desires to give up part of each person's salary for such purposes (as you have listed), maybe that country would be able to have a successful diversion of money from the workers to needy people. But then it is too bad that you have to rely on government to extract that money from people rather than having voluntary donations to charitable institutions (or directly to needy people).

[Starlight]

Yeah because just raising taxes so you can spend more or printing more money doesn't screw up the economy at all.

I would say raising taxes is usually beneficial to the economy. The US saw great years of growth in the 1945-1975 era when taxes were sky-high. The top income tax bracket under Eisenhower paid 91%.

A reason for this is that while people living paycheck to paycheck spend all the money they earn each week on goods and services, as typically does the government, the group who doesn't spend as much as they earn is rich people (they have a lower "marginal propensity to consume" in economy terminology) and their lack of spending on goods and services can become too great and businesses' sales will drop if people aren't spending ("aggregate demand" drops), so transferring that unspent money from the rich to a government that spends it will increase total demand for goods and services within the economy (increase "aggregate demand") thus improving the day-to-day sales of all businesses.

Printing money is occasionally useful in a deflationary crisis to help improve the economy. Its effects usually seem to be slightly negative though, though that has recently become a topic of debate among academics. (See "modern monetary theory")

[Starlight]

Spending cuts are as foreign to our politicians as praising Jesus is to you!

Did you not hear about the budget sequestration that took place under Obama?

PAYGO's rules trigger similar across the board automatic cuts.

[Starlight]

You don't seem to understand that both parties are sponsored by the international corporations, foundations, and one-percent people.

Oh, I do, and addressing corruption is one of my primary political concerns.

To that end I am supporting Wolf PAC which is trying to get the States to pass a constitutional amendment to get money out of federal politics, advocate for SCOTUS judges who will overturn the previous decisions that have allowed corruption to increase greatly, support Ranked Choice Voting which allows voters to have more control over which politicians get elected and elect 3rd party politicians which should break the 2-party gridlock and much of the corruption, and support the Justice Democrats who are a new group who have pledged to take no PAC or lobbyist money and who have just had 11 members elected include the famous Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. What are you supporting / doing to de-corrupt the system?

If we weren't interacting with the Federal Reserve for getting money, we wouldn't likely have this current debt;

There was plenty of national debt in plenty of countries, including the US, long before Federal Reserves were invented.

if another country (also one which is smaller and has a more unified population) is free of such debt and has a population who, as a whole, desires to give up part of each person's salary for such purposes (as you have listed), maybe that country would be able to have a successful diversion of money from the workers to needy people.

So, like pretty much most of the rest of the Western world, yes. Welfare programs work well, and everybody has them for that reason.

But then it is too bad that you have to rely on government to extract that money from people rather than having voluntary donations to charitable institutions (or directly to needy people).

People don't donate enough money to charity, by an order of magnitude or two. So charity isn't a serious possibility in terms of solutions.

[Cow Poke]

Did you not hear about the budget sequestration that took place under Obama?

Did you actually read the Wiki () article to which you linked?

Things like this from that Wiki () "article"...

However, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the total federal outlays would continue to increase even with the sequester by an average of $238.6 billion per year[2](p3) during the following decade, although at a somewhat lesser rate.

PAYGO's rules trigger similar across the board automatic cuts.

I'm not buying it. Perhaps you are unaware of the fungibility of federal dollars, and the skill with which politicians always manage to fund the things they want to fund.

[lilpixieofterror]

I would say raising taxes is usually beneficial to the economy. The US saw great years of growth in the 1945-1975 era when taxes were sky-high. The top income tax bracket under Eisenhower paid 91%.

And how many actually paid that much?

[Starlight]

And how many actually paid that much?

The rich have always been good at tax evasion and paying people to help them with that. One benefit of having really high tax rates for them is that even if they manage to evade them somewhat such that they end up only paying half of what they actually owe, then the rate they actually pay is still reasonably high.

[lilpixieofterror]

The rich have always been good at tax evasion and paying people to help them with that. One benefit of having really high tax rates for them is that even if they manage to evade them somewhat such that they end up only paying half of what they actually owe, then the rate they actually pay is still reasonably high.

Source?

[mikewhitney]

Oh, I do, and addressing corruption is one of my primary political concerns.

To that end I am supporting Wolf PAC which is trying to get the States to pass a constitutional amendment to get money out of federal politics, advocate for SCOTUS judges who will overturn the previous decisions that have allowed corruption to increase greatly, support Ranked Choice Voting which allows voters to have more control over which politicians get elected and elect 3rd party politicians which should break the 2-party gridlock and much of the corruption, and support the Justice Democrats who are a new group who have pledged to take no PAC or lobbyist money and who have just had 11 members elected include the famous Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. What are you supporting / doing to de-corrupt the system?
.

I think the best way to go is to inform people that we cannot rely on big government to do anything in our interest.