2024 US Presidential Election

[zorg1000]

BFR said:

zorg1000 said:

Focus on these 5 major areas: childcare, elder care, healthcare, education & housing. If people can afford these things then the increased price of consumer products & services isn’t nearly as big of an issue. Propose a major Act that includes:

$200bn-universal Pre-K for 3 & 4 year olds

$250bn-tuition free community college & increased Pell Grants

$200bn-subsidized daycare and training for daycare providers

$50bn-expand summer EBT & free school meals

$200bn-12 weeks paid family and medical leave

$400bn-expand access to long term, home and community based care for elderly & disabled

$200bn-extend increased Affordable Care Act subsidies (set to expire at end of 2025) 

$250bn-build and rehabilitate ~2 million homes and improve public housing

$100bn-build and upgrade public schools, daycare facilities & community colleges

$650bn-expand Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit & Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit

Thank you Zorg, for leading to the bankruptcy of the USA.  God help us all.

No, it’s the last 40+ years of tax cuts that are bankrupting the country.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/

https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/after-decades-of-costly-regressive-and-ineffective-tax-cuts-a-new-course-is

From the 30s into the 70s we were a high tax country that was making large investments in infrastructure, housing, healthcare, education, the environment, research & development, worker protections & safety net programs. During most of this time (post WWII in particular) the economy & middle class were growing and our debt to GDP ratio was declining.

Starting in the 80s with Reagan’s “trickle down” economics, we have seen massive tax cuts that primarily benefit the rich & corporations along with underinvestment in the categories listed above leading to a rapidly growing debt to GDP ratio and wealth inequality increasing.

During the Clinton administration, we had a middle ground tax system (higher than Reagan era, lower than Pre-Reagan) where the wealthy had moderately higher taxes and were able to produce budget surpluses leading to declining debt to GDP while still being able to create new relief programs for working class families.

Ever since then it has been a back and forth of Bush & Trump passing Reagan style tax cuts for the rich and ballooning the debt while Obama & Biden have tried (unsuccessfully) to return to the Clinton style balance.

According to those articles, 57% of the federal debt is due to the Bush & Trump tax cuts and it goes up to 90% if you include the stimulus spending from the Great Recession & Covid Pandemic. If we had just kept the Clinton era tax rates, the federal debt would not be nearly as high and we could afford to increase spending on the categories listed above.