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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25659 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025

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Be that as it may, the literal only cuts that would make a difference would have to be to entitlements. Slice the defense budget to ZERO and it wouldn't actually fix the issue.

And reducing entitlements is the political equivalent of navigating a field of nuclear landmines.

And for this same reason, raising taxes would directly imply taking money from productive sectors of the economy to give to the nonproductive sectors. Which is not exactly a formula for growth.

So if you think Trump is not doing enough, please, PLEASE specify exactly which programs he should start making drastic cuts to, and then go and explain to the voters who will see their benefits reduced why this is important and necessary and they SHOULDN'T revolt at the ballot box.

Or, alternatively, explain to the various taxpayers why THEY should be on the hook for programs they generally don't receive a direct benefit from.

Simple problem to solve, I'm sure.

(Incidentally, I suspect that part of the plan RE: Tariffs is to help spread around the tax burden in a way that most Americans won't see as a direct extraction from their wallet, so as to avoid the outrage that would come with congress passing an actual income tax hike)

The position I'm responding to is that Trump cracking a few eggs of norms is worth it if that's what it takes to get the debt under control I'm pointing out that we're getting eggs cracked and the debt is not being taken under control. I'm sure we could have some debate about how best to get the debt under control, I agree some reductions in entitlements, particularly the absurd wealth transfer from the young to the old that is medicare and to a slightly less absurd degree social security come to mind. But as far as I can tell we have a bunch of cracked eggs and rather than a balanced budget omelet we have nothing to show for it. Of course the most obvious place to start would be getting rid of the literal trillions of dollars(over a decade) in tax cuts that he passed.

Or, alternatively, explain to the various taxpayers why THEY should be on the hook for programs they generally don't receive a direct benefit from.

I would like the extra costs to be put towards paying down the debt, having a lower debt burden is in fact a way us tax payers are benefiting.

Of course the most obvious place to start would be getting rid of the literal trillions of dollars(over a decade) in tax cuts that he passed.

having a lower debt burden is in fact a way us tax payers are benefiting.

Yeah, so tying tax increases with actual entitlement spending cuts would in theory be palatable. But you're going to piss off the groups who rely on that spending, who can then vote for people who promise to restore the spending and keep the taxes high.

So the promise of "I'm raising your taxes, but don't worry I'm only using it to decrease the debt" is not intrinsically reliable.

That's the Gordian knot, as it were.

You don't have to actually cut entitlements at all. You can just raise taxes and use that money to pay down the debt(or at least close the deficit so you aren't creating more debt). The guy in the the white house can make that call. My point is we're currently breaking eggs and receiving no omelet.

I think various high-tax European countries are showing how that process doesn't really work.

Doubly so if your country's entitlements can be hijacked by racially-motivated interest groups.

Entitlements tend to be 'nonproductive' spending. Taking money out of productive investments to spend on nonproductive ends is... not going to grow GDP, which is going to hurt tax revenues over the longer term.

Europe's problem is strangulating regulation. I should note that I don't love taxes and prefer they be low. My only point is that you can't forgo tax revenue and then bemoan the national debt. You pay for the debt with taxes.

And you pay for taxes with production and you get more production if you don't tax productivity.

Round and round it goes.

And if we're being really technical, they could also pay the debt by selling off various assets, including the millions upon millions of acres of land they hold. This would have possible undesirable impacts, I grant, but its a lever they could indeed pull.

Trump could try to do that. (Oh wait.) If someone really wants to make a 'dent' in the debt crisis that should, honestly, be on the table.

So I'm really not disagreeing with the idea that its hard, and raising taxes will be part of it. I just think the political will to directly impose higher income tax doesn't exist.

So why don't we take your plan to it's obvious logical conclusion, say "who cares about the debt" and just stop collecting taxes all together?

ENDORSED.

Just inflate the debt away to virtually nothing, swap to a Gold and/or Bitcoin standard, and keep rolling.

Man, I'm basically an Anarcho-Capitalist, I will bite those bullets like candy.

And I am not joking. I live in Florida. We have no income tax. We have no estate/gift tax, we have comparatively low property taxes. And we're discussing getting rid of the property taxes altogether. Most revenue is sales tax.

And we've run a $10+ billion dollar surplus in recent years. There's just shy of $5 billion sitting in the 'rainy day fund' for emergencies. Spending is PROACTIVELY being cut just in case we get a recession in the near future.

I fucking love it. I'm actually quite tired of having to deal with the profligate spending of the Federal Government whilst living in an overall fiscally responsible state.

I expect that the U.S. economy would probably survive the FedGov defaulting on its debt. How each state would weather that storm is a bigger question, but the fact that the U.S. can so readily fall back on its constituent political units definitely makes it more flexible.

So hey, I say RETVRN to a system that apportions federal taxes amongst the states and makes said states figure out how to raise that money or, if the burden is deemed too high, acts to get the FedGov to constrain its spending.

But under the current political reality, I'm very interested in seeing how FedGov navigates the current crisis and avoids a default situation.

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