Yeah, his entire plan of more tax cuts, more tariffs and more drilling to make prices come down is just pure nonsense. And like you said, across the board deflation isn’t good, it most likely would mean that we were in a major recession.

There really is no quick fix to high prices, the fed continuing to work towards the ~2% inflation target and gradually lowering interest rates to bring down borrowing costs along with annual wage growth of 3-4% will see purchasing power slowly but surely increase but that’s not what voters want to hear so we get dumb shit like “drill baby drill!”

I want Kamala to hammer Trump on his dumb economic plans and Vance’s weird views on families by  really pushing hard on the aspects of Build Back Better that were removed and Walz was able to get through in Minnesota.

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

Ok, it is now official....

ABC News has said it will host the first debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on 10 September.

The network confirmed the showdown in a post on X, formerly Twitter, after Trump said on Thursday that he would be open to debating his Democratic rival multiple times before the November election.

“We think we should do three debates,” Trump said, suggesting two additional debates that he said would be hosted by Fox News and NBC, respectively.

Ms Harris confirmed that she will attend the ABC debate while at an event in Michigan on Thursday, and said later that she would be open to additional debates.

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

Richest country in the history of the world cannot afford what every other developed nation does, plus Universal Healthcare. (Aside from the last point.)

To put the costs into perspective: 

Trump's tax cuts (primarily for the wealthy) cost the country somewhere in the ballpark of $2tril. Extending those tax cuts could cost upward of $4tril over the next decade. Adding the additional tax cuts he has proposed would bring that up to around $7tril.

Zorg just proposed about $2tril in spending and about $0.65tril in tax cuts.

Bring it, Trump won't win this debate in the eyes of Americans.  All of the senior moments that he has won't be helping him.

Yup, it's always the same story. There are concerns about where all the money should come from, but the necessary money (and more) has actually been there all along. Just takes politicians with enough spine to rake in the money.

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.

Yeah and it’s not like the American Families Plan, where I took most of these proposals and amounts from, didn’t also include various taxes to pay for these.

Things like raising the top income tax bracket back to 39.6%, taxing capital gains at the same rate as income and raising the corporate tax rate to 28% as examples.

Also it’s not like these amounts are etched it stone either, even if done through reconciliation with just democrats, there will inevitably be haggling over things like price and what provisions are included. Might as well start high so even a smaller bill is still pretty substantial.