It's quite analogous to obesity and weight loss.
If you eat a lot and don't exercise you get fat. I.e., If your caloric intake is greater than your caloric output, you gain weight.
Consequently if you spend a lot of money but have low income, then you will go further into debt.
The only way to overcome this is to first cut spending. That is paramount. If you cut taxes first, it's comparable to taking a lower paying job but still spending at the same rate.
If you cut taxes without cutting spending you actually make things worse. Which is where we are now. Tax cuts in the 2000-2008 period were paired with increased spending.
There is only one solution.
We have to make income (tax revenue) greater than expenditures (various entitlements and programs.)
That said, which programs should we cut, and whose taxes should we raise? That is the hard question that politicians need to answer. Republicans don't want to raise taxes on the rich or corporations or cut spending on their big ticket items. Democrats don't want to raise taxes on the lower and middle class or cut spending on their big ticket items.
Nobody wants to make short term hard choices that will cause hard times in exchange for long term financial solvency, mostly because it's political suicide. Can you imagine Republicans cutting defense spending in half? Or Democrats cutting welfare/social security or any number of other programs?
And the biggest ticket item that can be cut is defense. Not all defense, but there is quite a bit of fat that can be trimmed. We need to be cold calculating and utterly merciless when it comes to cutting unnecessary spending in defense.
First: Eliminate the desire for politicians to be concerned with their reelection. (Universal Term Limits)
Second: Actually find ways to prevent corporations from avoiding to pay US taxes. Sure they're tax rate is something >30%, but that's only if they actually pay any taxes at all! Why can they hide from US taxes by using international subsidiaries, but as an individual living and working abroad I get taxed twice. Once by host country. Once by the US?
Third: Take a long, hard and cold merciless look on what services are really needed. If it's not needed, it gets cut. Period.
So let's hear your ideas! Which of your favorite pet programs would you cut? Not the other sides programs, but your own?
If you eat a lot and don't exercise you get fat. I.e., If your caloric intake is greater than your caloric output, you gain weight.
Consequently if you spend a lot of money but have low income, then you will go further into debt.
The only way to overcome this is to first cut spending. That is paramount. If you cut taxes first, it's comparable to taking a lower paying job but still spending at the same rate.
If you cut taxes without cutting spending you actually make things worse. Which is where we are now. Tax cuts in the 2000-2008 period were paired with increased spending.
There is only one solution.
We have to make income (tax revenue) greater than expenditures (various entitlements and programs.)
That said, which programs should we cut, and whose taxes should we raise? That is the hard question that politicians need to answer. Republicans don't want to raise taxes on the rich or corporations or cut spending on their big ticket items. Democrats don't want to raise taxes on the lower and middle class or cut spending on their big ticket items.
Nobody wants to make short term hard choices that will cause hard times in exchange for long term financial solvency, mostly because it's political suicide. Can you imagine Republicans cutting defense spending in half? Or Democrats cutting welfare/social security or any number of other programs?
And the biggest ticket item that can be cut is defense. Not all defense, but there is quite a bit of fat that can be trimmed. We need to be cold calculating and utterly merciless when it comes to cutting unnecessary spending in defense.
First: Eliminate the desire for politicians to be concerned with their reelection. (Universal Term Limits)
Second: Actually find ways to prevent corporations from avoiding to pay US taxes. Sure they're tax rate is something >30%, but that's only if they actually pay any taxes at all! Why can they hide from US taxes by using international subsidiaries, but as an individual living and working abroad I get taxed twice. Once by host country. Once by the US?
Third: Take a long, hard and cold merciless look on what services are really needed. If it's not needed, it gets cut. Period.
So let's hear your ideas! Which of your favorite pet programs would you cut? Not the other sides programs, but your own?