how to get the deficit under control

Author: n8nrgim

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#1
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trump is just causing chaos. he's breaking a lot of things, but not really changing the deficit much. moderate republicans are fighting him on things that would really change the deficit, spending to the people.  trump will probably just cause the deficit to spiral out of control and not change anything, just like last term. he's catering to the least common denominator, people's worst impulses, giving the people money at the expense of the younger generation. 

so what should be done?  a two percent wealth tax on the top one percent of wealth, and maybe cutting all spending by ten percent. 

the top one percent own about 45 trillion worth of wealth. a two percent wealth tax would raise about 900 billion dollars per year. we spend about four or five trillion a year, so cutting that would save another 4 or 500 billion per year. our deficit is 1.8 trillion. 

these measures would get our deficit down to where it grows about the same rate as our economy, which means it's under control. this is all without major shock to the population, and just taking  a little off the top from the wealthy. the wealthy probably wouldn't move to another country just because of a two percent wealth tax. 

if we wanted to raise a little more, it could make the tax on the top two percent of wealth, or top 5. i dont think we're desperate enough to need it on the  top ten percent of wealth. 

a wealth tax also forces people to pay who use loop holes to get their declared income close to zero for tax purposes. 
#2
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@n8nrgim
Trump needs to reduce spending by 4 trillions and make it so that we have small deficit.

Just to be clear, most of US debt isnt real debt. Its just printed money from US bank which isnt any big deal.

The real problem will always be government spending and taxes.

Taxes, money printing and government spending reduces economy.

We dont need to increase taxes. We need to reduce spending so taxes can stay same or even lower.

US spending is like 7 trillion dollars and deficit is almost 2 trillions.

Just cut spending by 3 to 4 trillions and cut taxes by 1 to 2 trillions and US economy will be great again.
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#3
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@Best.Korea
what do you propose cutting to get rid of our 1.8 trillion deficit per year?  trump and elon are just making small dents in spending, causing a lot of damage without really changing anything. i can cite you articles on that if you dont believe me. neither of them can over come the resistence even from their own party on cutting people's healthcare and benefits. 
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@n8nrgim
Military, healthcare and social security are biggest expenses. They make about 4 trillion together.

They need to make all public schools private, and all public hospitals private.

Reduce military spending by 200 billion.

Then remove healthcare spending and remove useless parts of social security by turning police into private security agencies. Also, make all prisons private and reduce number of prisoners so workforce in economy increases, while also giving jobs to all prisoners who remain in prison.

Also, the remaining 3 trillions of spending probably need to be reduced by at least 1 trillion. I dont even know what they are. They are a huge bunch of small expenses piled up.
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So u want to just start cutting people's benefits and healthcare, consequences be damned? Besides being unethical, do u know how unpopular that would be and damaging to to careers of politicians who would do such a thing?
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@Best.Korea
K through 12 is already funded by local taxes  and colleges r not publically owned. I can see limiting federal spending on education but u look like someone who doesn't know what he's talking about on education
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@n8nrgim
So u want to just start cutting people's benefits and healthcare, consequences be damned? Besides being unethical, do u know unpopular that would be and damaging to to careers of politicians who would do such a thing?
When government spending reduces, people will have more money and they will be able to afford healthcare without government taking money from them to pay for their healthcare.

Besides, if government wants to be charity, then give poor people money directly so they spend it as they want. Not everyone even wants healthcare. You have people who barely visit doctor or dentist.
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@n8nrgim
K through 12 is already funded by local taxes
Local taxes are also payed for by Americans, so really, its a win win to make it all private.

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@n8nrgim
the top one percent own about 45 trillion worth of wealth. a two percent wealth tax would raise about 900 billion dollars per year. we spend about four or five trillion a year, so cutting that would save another 4 or 500 billion per year. our deficit is 1.8 trillion. 
That wealth is largely in stocks or other investments they haven't liquidated, and the rich aren't big spenders (over-the-top frugality is a character trait which contributes to becoming wealthy in the first place) with the taxes already in place, not counting the additional taxes you would impose. So my question is, how much would you realistically raise this way?

Assuming you were to impose an unrealized capital gains tax (which would obviously raise a lot less than $900 billion at two percent), what would stop a bunch of whales from manipulating the markets so that they dip on tax day and then bounce back the day after? For example, if Jeff Bezos wanted to deflate the valuation of his roughly 9 percent share in Amazon on tax day, why couldn't he order Amazon to cut down on stock buybacks during and in the month before tax day, or have a million bots trade with each other at low prices, so that demand for Amazon temporarily cools?
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@n8nrgim
Every time I see a suggestion like this, the same line of thinking is missing. One particular question is never asked.

How are these people you’re about to tax going to react to the new taxes?
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#11
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@Mharman
I assume they'll grit their teeth and bear it. I don't think most do anything major over a two percent tax of their net worth, though I could be wrong. 
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@n8nrgim
We spend 3x per day per student to get near the worst education in the world.

More spending on a corrupt system just makes it more corrupt. You fix the deficit by removing the corrupt system.

You say it's unpopular, but it's only really unpopular with the people benefitting from a corrupt system. 80% of Americans are fine with destroying corrupt systems.
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@n8nrgim
I assume they'll grit their teeth and bear it. I don't think most do anything major over a two percent tax of their net worth, though I could be wrong.

Here’s what we know:

In 2024, billionaire wealth increased by $1.4 trillion OR $3.9 billion per day. There were 74 new billionaires.
According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent.

According to leaked tax returns highlighted in a ProPublica investigation, the 25 richest Americans paid $13.6 billion in taxes from 2014-2018—a “true” tax rate of just 3.4 percent on $401 billion of income.

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@n8nrgim
No. 

As it turns out, people don’t like being taxed. Especially those in the highest tax bracket.

Many of them, are of course, business owners. So what you’ll see is that they will want to take a greater share of their businesses’ profits- lowing wages or firing people… or limiting new hires or wage raises in a way that is much sneakier. If that seems like a bad idea to the owner, the alternative is to raise the prices of the product or service they are selling, and pass the tax onto the consumer. Any combination of these strategies works as well.

Sure, there will be a select few who eat some, or even more rare, all of the taxes you’re throwing at them, but the big trend is that the costs will be passed down to the workforce or to the consumer.

It is for this reason that “taxing the rich” actually taxes everyone.

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#15
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@Mharman
You could say that about any tax. Should we just not tax the wealthy cause they'll Weasel out of the consequences? Are you sure you wouldn't be the one against what we already have as the highest tax bracket, which as far as i can tell is working fine yet youd be agaisnt? Instead of wealth taxes where all the richest of the country are, do you prefer taxing income and sticking it to the working class who have no way to weasel out of it?

If u don't like the wealthy not paying taxes what would your solution be? 



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@Mharman
Plus I think if there's ways to cut costs the businesses would already be doing it. They're not out of goodwill spending more than they have to
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@n8nrgim
A national sales tax is the best. The rich can't weasel out of it, and they will have to spend it at some point.

Congress will never let it happen because they get paid for passing tax exemptions for the rich.
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@n8nrgim
Greyparrot's probably got the best option, although I've been thinking about a flat tax. I will add that I've recently become a libertarian, and am not sure if AnCap or MinCap is better. So "no taxes at all" may be my answer in the future depending on which path I choose. It is certain, however, that increasing taxation will harm the economy.

At minimum, the solution isn't to tax the hell out of people (which loses revenue once you reach a certain threshold- per the Laffer Curve), it's to cut spending. Not "maybe" but by a lot. Most of what our government does should be privatized, with only defense, currency, infrastructure, and some common law being its role. And that's the bare minimum cost reduction for me. Charity, education, healthcare... they will not cease to exist just because they are not funded by the government, nor will any concerning amount of people be cut off from them.