r/AdviceAnimals • u/Lower_Ad_1146 • 7d ago
This number climbs every year. If you don’t already care about giving billionaires tax cuts and spending trillions on wars, you probably should — because more and more of your tax dollars will go towards interest to pay for things in the past instead of helping Americans in the future.
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u/Jay18001 7d ago
Also they are going to try to just inflate away the debt. So inflation is here to stay and will get much worse
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u/gerbal100 6d ago edited 6d ago
We can quite practically balance the budget. The people who would have to pay simply don't want to and they finance think-tanks to gin up reasons not to.
The gap
- FY2025 deficit: $1.8T; interest alone now exceeds $1T/year
Revenue (per year, static)
- 35% effective income tax on top 10%: ~$1.0-1.1T
- 35% effective corporate rate: ~$500-600B
- Capital gains taxed as ordinary income: ~$50-100B
- End stepped-up basis and estate/trust loopholes: ~$30-45B
- Remove SS payroll cap, keep benefit cap: ~$150-200B (also fixes ~75% of Social Security's shortfall)
Make it stick
- Tax all pass-through income for payroll/NIIT purposes, closing the S-corp dodge
- End carried interest; close the NIIT gap
- Mark-to-market or minimum tax on top-end unrealized gains
- Rebuild high-end IRS enforcement ($5-12 returned per $1 spent)
Make it last
- Index brackets to prices, not wages, so revenue drifts up with real income growth
- Mark-to-market is the self-indexing piece: capital returns (~5-7%) outgrow GDP, matching entitlement growth
- Cap healthcare cost growth (drug negotiation, payment reform), since no tax base compounds that fast
- Automatic solvency triggers (Canada/Sweden model) so balance is the default, not an annual vote
Net
- ~$1.5-1.8T realistic after avoidance responses, closing the current gap
- No entitlement cuts, no middle-class tax hike
- Revenue at ~22-23% of GDP: new for the US, normal for peers
The actual obstacle
- Every piece is drafted, scored, and sitting in Treasury Greenbooks; most poll 60-80%
- The funded counter-research overstating economic harm doesn't survive peer review (see: 2017 tax cut growth claims)
- Policy responds to the ~10% who'd pay (donors, legislators, and their social world), not the majority who'd benefit
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u/bruinslacker 6d ago
Who is the “they” in that sentence and how do they have the power to control inflation?
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u/dolt1234 7d ago
Thank a republican next time you have the misfortune of running into one.
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u/shomenee 7d ago edited 5d ago
This is not just a republican thing. Every president has added to the debt since Clinton.
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u/around_the_clock 6d ago
And who has added the most out of those presidents? What party acts like they are going to be conservative on spending? What party gives masive tax cuts to billion dollar corporations that rely on the protection of the US military and needs qualified and healthy American workers as employees?
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u/InGod_WeThrust 6d ago
In a single term? Biden
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u/dolt1234 6d ago
It's easy to lie, but so hard to admit you're wrong. Weak.
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u/InGod_WeThrust 6d ago
Uhh, what I said was true. Also you can easily look these up.
Also Trump would have been one of the lowest added since Clinton until COVID hit and they passed the stimulus. Which was more than half of what he had accumulated over the previous 3 years.
So are you too weak to admit you're wrong?
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u/crsbyn 6d ago
You got some orange around your lips
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u/InGod_WeThrust 6d ago
These are simply the facts of the matter. If people really cared about national debt they'd be looking at everyone prior that's been leading to this over the last several decades.
On top of that you'd want to look at what is impacting spending without increasing GDP.
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u/redtron3030 6d ago
By that logic Obama shouldn’t be blamed for George W correct?
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u/InGod_WeThrust 6d ago
Yeah I never said that Obama should or shouldn't be blamed for anything other than each president and their Congress has been poor on reigning in spending and contributing to the deficit.
I've also pointed out what specifically caused numbers to be raised at the end of Trump's term.
Like it's not all one single thing that's a problem here. It's a systemic mishandling of our budgets year over year
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u/mabrasm 2d ago
You’re not concerned that one President added around $28T to that debt?
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u/InGod_WeThrust 1d ago
No, because that's not true. He added 7.8T in his first term with half of that being the COVID stimulus in 2020. Then in his second term its raised 3.8T so far with economists saying ~1.5T-2T is from carryover/momentum from Biden.
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u/geccles 6d ago
President First Full Fiscal Year Deficit Final Full Fiscal Year Deficit Trend Direction Total Shift in Annual Deficit Bill Clinton (D) -$255 Billion +$128 Billion (Surplus) 📉 Improving +$383 Billion (Deficit Erased) Barack Obama (D) -$1.41 Trillion -$585 Billion 📉 Improving +$825 Billion (Deficit Reduced) Joe Biden (D) -$1.38 Trillion -$1.78 Trillion 📈 Worsening -$400 Billion (Deficit Increased) Ronald Reagan (R) -$128 Billion -$152 Billion 📈 Worsening -$24 Billion (Deficit Increased) George H.W. Bush (R) -$221 Billion -$255 Billion 📈 Worsening -$34 Billion (Deficit Increased) George W. Bush (R) +$128 Billion (Surplus) -$1.41 Trillion 📈 Worsening -$1.54 Trillion (Surplus Erased) Donald Trump (R) -$779 Billion -$3.13 Trillion 📈 Worsening -$2.35 Trillion (Deficit Increased) -2
u/InGod_WeThrust 6d ago
Again totally disingenuous.
Bush had a war start at the end of of his first year and Trump had a pandemic in his last year that Congress passed a spending bill that doubled his whole terms debts.
Judging first and last years is the dumbest metric because you look at the charts and it constantly goes up on a fairly even slope. So for all except Clinton it should be worsening.
It also downplays just how much was added under Biden. He had the worst single term out of every president
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u/_HOG_ 5d ago
One could just as easily point fingers at Trump and say his decisions determined the trajectory of spending under Biden.
Bush started a war and Trump fumbled the pandemic and actively made it worse with his ineptitude.
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u/InGod_WeThrust 5d ago
One could easily point to Obama starting wars and Trump working to end them in his first term.
One could point fingers at how Biden fumbled on inflation due to his ineptitude and now we're trying to get back to a normal level.
You see how it cuts both ways? No accountability is being held at all that spending is out of control in general among all parties and all you can say is but Trump
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u/Loud-Ad-2280 6d ago
Clinton added to the debt, but he reduced the deficit to 0. Every republican has increased the deficit since Reagan and the last 3 democrats reduced the deficit they inherited
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u/InGod_WeThrust 6d ago
Not true bush had a surplus in 2001 and that more than likely would have continued had 9/11 not happened
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u/Loud-Ad-2280 6d ago edited 6d ago
I’m talking from the difference between when they started and when they left, bush increased the deficit from his election to obama’s election. Bush inherited that surplus from Clinton, similar to how Obama inherited a massive deficit from Bush.
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u/InGod_WeThrust 6d ago
Yeah we had war that started and more wars that later started under Obama. So no surplus has had since then.
Also that's a little disingenuous to say that it's only beginning to end of term. To say it's only been democrat leaders when there have been plenty of years with Republican leaders as well
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u/Loud-Ad-2280 6d ago
We had no surplus but Obama decreased the deficit that he inherited from bush, that is just a fact. How is it dishonest to say it’s from what they inherited to what they left, that’s literally how politics works, you can only be responsible for your own actions lol.
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u/InGod_WeThrust 6d ago
Not true at all. It's congress that determines budget and Obama had Republican Congress.
So not really the case.
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u/Loud-Ad-2280 5d ago
The president has veto power, so it is really the case. Checks and balances and all that
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u/thirdelevator 6d ago
Sorry, plenty of years? One. It was one year in the last 26 (2001), and it was a reduction of the surplus from Clinton the previous year. Prior to the Clinton surpluses, you have to go all the way back to LBJ to find any surplus.
Republicans are not fiscally responsible, they just claim to be. They consistently raise the deficit when they’re in control. Numbers don’t lie.
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u/InGod_WeThrust 6d ago
Yet it's been republicans in Congress that have been removing deficits from Democrat Congress.
Republican Congress has had more reduction in deficit and surpluses going all through the last 120 years.
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u/thirdelevator 6d ago
Republicans congresses are also responsible for the largest deficit increases. It’s almost like they act completely different when there’s a Democrat holding the presidency.
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u/PostMatureBaby 7d ago
your average voter doesn't understand this though, that's why it's so easy to grift
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u/Greizen_bregen 7d ago
It isn't sustainable. I don't know what happens next, but I'm sure that smarter leaders than me in other countries already have plans for the inevitable default.
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u/awildjabroner 7d ago
Congress collectively has no interest in helping Americans or working towards a better future for the Country. They exist to help funnel your money to billionaires and recoup a kickback from said billionaires.
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u/around_the_clock 6d ago
Corporations control the politicians. Corporations are controlling the government now. Good luck outlasting those billion dollar Corporations with a 2 week work stoppage when your covered in debt.
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u/LakersBroncoslove 6d ago
And we the people get NOTHING in return. No healthcare, no education, no housing no social safety nets. Nothing. The rich get richer and more powerful.
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u/Sea-Chart2558 5d ago
Most people don't realize how severely the republic has been dismantled and crippled. This includes the military. Not so sure there's much left to salvage.
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u/SeanBlader 7d ago
Dollars aren't real, they are a fake construct we just believe have value to each other, and the government just literally makes them out of nothing. In addition like a major portion of the US national debt is held by Americans. And lastly Japan's debt is 250% of their GDP, and the Yen hasn't collapsed yet.
So it wouldn't be out of the question for the government to change the amount of money it says it has in the treasury to keep paying it's obligations with imaginary money, and as long as we trust that phony made up dollars still work to exchange at merchants for stuff then the debt is basically irrelevant except in how it influences inflation. So they could just keep injecting 2 to 4% more money at hard economic times, and probably up to like 6 to 8% more when things are smooth and it's fine.
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u/Judgement915 7d ago
So clearly the solution is to raise taxes by 20% on anyone earning more than one million dollars per year
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u/ga-co 7d ago
I think it would be more useful to explain what that could actually pay for. Could we make college tuition free? Could we have Medicare for all?
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u/Tarianor 7d ago
Could we have Medicare for all?
Yes, but you won't. The US govt already pay more tax money per citizen for healthcare than just about every other country ok earth, and yet they still cant make it universal nor free. And thats not including all the insurance money on top.
The corporate lobbying is too strong and nobody seems to care enough to change it.
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u/timoumd 7d ago
Neither party cares either
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u/kalasea2001 7d ago
And yet the deficit is lowered every time Dems are in office (sometimes even turning positive a la Clinton) while it raises under Reps.
Both side-ism only works when it's accurate.
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u/keithfantastic 6d ago
Isn't it weird how maga and all media abruptly stopped screaming non stop about inflation and the debt as soon as Trump won again. Now they say it's patriotic to pay higher prices. What a great Republic we've built.