Comment on Would another program like Roosevelt's WPA turn America around quickly from the shitty place we are in?

• 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

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• sportsjorts@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Or we could tax the rich and expand services to the poor and needy?

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  • 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.

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    • 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.

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      • brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        U.S taxes are ~17% of GDP. That’s already significant.

        Lets increase corporate taxes manyfold so its the primary source of revenue, and gut defense spending to 1/3 its size, without cutting personal income tax too much. Lets not touch medicare or anything at all. Let’s pretend that’s somehow politically viable and wouldn’t topple the US government from riots in the streets:

        thefiscaltimes.com/…/20261016-US-Budget-Deficit-R…

        chart showing expenses and revenue of us govt

        …We would still barely break even.

        And that’s before the AI bubble pops, and kills tax revenue.

        There’s basically no way around this without touching something painful, like social security.

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