Quote:
Originally Posted by KillerK
How do you determine what is "ENOUGH"
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Real world time.
The US is $16.25 in debt and rising. As Minte says it has to stop. He's spot on. We disagree over how it stops. Yet stop it must.
$51,565 per citizen or $141,556 per tax payer.
This is because of GWB, Wars, Bank Crisis, Obama not raising taxes and the US living beyond it's income. The Tax revenue for 2012 is estimated at $10 trillion, 2012 is estimated at $11 trillion because of rising employment.
To cut it by cutting spending will be hard, but it's going to have to be part of the mix. Let's look at it.
$16.25 / 10 years = $1.65 a year. US GDP is $15.09 trillion a year. Cut the money spent in the US by 11%. Yes that's what cutting means. It will lead to devastating losses in the online porn industry, retail, luxury goods, house prices, in fact everything. And here's reality.
Let's just say for arguments sake. Every job cut costs the Government $16,500 a year. Do the maths to see how many jobs the US would need to lose. And yes, the goods being bought those employed people are using, are other peoples jobs. Sack an office worker, you buy less office equipment, less fuel for the heating or air conditioning. Sack a fireman, less uniforms, fire engines to buy.
Then all those people without a job are no longer spending money in shops, so they have to fire someone.
AND, yes it's a big and. These people now unemployed are going to want Social Security, Medicare, food stamp and people to administer the system of giving them the money. In extreme cases Child Welfare.
All because those with jobs, don't want to pay more taxes.
AND, they will have to because those unemployed are now no longer paying taxes. Probably the US will need to borrow some more to fill the gap, unless you pay 50% more taxes.
I didn't bother to check the maths, because only a few top economists will know for certain. So unless you have the real figure. It's the example of what will happen if they try to cut their way to reduce the debt.
There was a case today on the News about UK Government waste. It wasn't but the papers made it look like it. A politician had his pet snake stuffed and put up in his office as a trophy. Waste or bad spending?
Well a UK taxidermist is now $16,000 richer and spending the money to keep his family fed. In honesty its selfish and bad spending. but like most Government spending goes from one pocket to another. Money circulates, it never stops.
So income tax rises by, careful cuts on overseas spending, careful Government spending on imported goods, sales tax, tax on imported goods. Yes Killer, you will have to tighten your belt. OR LET YOUR CHILDREN TIGHTEN THEIRS.
Now don't reply with bitching it solves nothing. How will you stop dumping the debt for your affluent life style on your descendants? Because the $16 trillion went into the US economy and made a lot of people better off.