We have pretty strong real world evidence that austerity contracts the economy, makes things worse. Government spending brings more money into circulation, stimulates the economy.
Austerity measures may seem obvious, but we’d be far better off rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy of the last several decades, and provide better/more services to those who need it.
We have the world’s first trillionaire, yet he pays a lower tax rate than most of us.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 days ago
That’s if the budget has been under control previously.
I think we have crossed the threshold where pain is unavoidable.
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That’s actually the logic I use- if we hadn’t had those tax cuts we’d still have a huge debt but not “pain is unavoidable”. We could have been running a relatively flat deficit that you could argue we’d eventually grow out of. You can’t argue that anymore but perhaps restoring those taxes would bring us back to more sane territory
sportsjorts@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Or we could tax the rich and expand services to the poor and needy?
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I mean, we could tax a worryingly large percentage of GDP, plus make significant cuts to the military, and existing services + the interest we pay on debt would still keep us in the red.
…That’s a nice sentiment, and social services can certainly be reworked.
But we are in a debt spiral.
sportsjorts@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
The way out is to make corporations and the most wealthy of us pay their share of taxes and not rob the country blind.