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Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

fortune.com

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Re: Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

#41

Post by whimsicalism »

PopAlongKid wrote: post #26
rayiner wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax level is about as high as it ever has been: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

Are you equating receipts with tax level? Tax is a rate applied to an income or wealth amount. Note that GDP includes government spending, which is not subject to tax but is based in part on debt. https://www.pgpf.org/article/six-charts-that-show-how-low-co...

sure but that sword cuts both ways. it is well documented pretty much nobody actually paid top nominal rates in the 50s because there were so many loopholes

Re: Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

#42

Post by whimsicalism »

potato3732842 wrote: post #28
simonsarris wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no steering anything. You are not paying for yourself, you are paying for current retirees on the hopes that there will be enough people to pay for your. Current retirees are not getting enough from that, so they are accumulating debt to pay themselves even more, hence the article. Since the population pyramid has not worked that way, you will simply have a worse time, and younger people even worse, unless yo…

>Since the population pyramid has not worked that way, you will simply have a worse time, and younger people even worse, unless you can convince the people after to take on even more debt. Why is "just pay current recipients enough to get them to STFU and phase out the program" not an option? It's not like anyone under 60 didn't at least have some expectation SS might go tits up. Younger genx on down have been raised…

gen Xers would fight it tooth and nail, you underestimate.

even many in my Gen Z cohort would be pissed, although i would be celebrating

Re: Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

#43

Post by stvltvs »

rayiner wrote: post #27
PopAlongKid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you equating receipts with tax level? Tax is a rate applied to an income or wealth amount. Note that GDP includes government spending, which is not subject to tax but is based in part on debt. https://www.pgpf.org/article/six-charts-that-show-how-low-co...

No. The chart shows "Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic Product "

Why choose that metric rather than income, corporate, capital gains, etc. tax rates? Seems like it could obfuscate who bears the burden of those taxes.

Re: Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

#44

Post by qeternity »

simonsarris wrote: post #3

> How severe? A sustainable U.S. debt trajectory would entail elimination of nearly all defense spending or almost all non-defense discretionary outlays, he estimated. Reminder that infrastructure is ~3% of the budget, the military is ~13%. Almost all of the rest are benefits, either health or money, for old people or various poverty reduction schemes. Or debt. Social Security was made when there were ~130:1 worker:r…

> Reminder that infrastructure is ~3% of the budget, the military is ~13%. Almost all of the rest are benefits, either health or money, for old people or various poverty reduction schemes. Or debt.

The US Government is an enormous welfare program with a military on the side.

Whenever people talk about the rich paying their fair share, they simply fail to grasp the enormity of the problem. There is no taxing your way out of this problem.

Society's expectations have far outpaced our fiscal strength.

Re: Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

#45

Post by potato3732842 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #42
potato3732842 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Since the population pyramid has not worked that way, you will simply have a worse time, and younger people even worse, unless you can convince the people after to take on even more debt. Why is "just pay current recipients enough to get them to STFU and phase out the program" not an option? It's not like anyone under 60 didn't at least have some expectation SS might go tits up. Younger genx on down have been raised…

gen Xers would fight it tooth and nail, you underestimate. even many in my Gen Z cohort would be pissed, although i would be celebrating

>gen Xers would fight it tooth and nail, you underestimate.

I think that's filter bubble speaking. People who aren't ideologically in favor of entitlements would likely be mildly for or against. People who are ideologically against entitlements would consider it a good thing.

Re: Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

#46

Post by whimsicalism »

potato3732842 wrote: post #45
whimsicalism wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gen Xers would fight it tooth and nail, you underestimate. even many in my Gen Z cohort would be pissed, although i would be celebrating

>gen Xers would fight it tooth and nail, you underestimate. I think that's filter bubble speaking. People who aren't ideologically in favor of entitlements would likely be mildly for or against. People who are ideologically against entitlements would consider it a good thing.

Soon-to-be recipients stand to lose out on tens of thousands of dollars from SS cuts. I think this would skew the normal distribution of ideological views you are imagining far more than you think.

Don’t think this is “filter bubble” as I don’t interact with many Gen Xers and the ones I do likely skew skeptical of SS.

Re: Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

#48

Post by nobodyandproud »

whimsicalism wrote: post #33
nobodyandproud wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the perspective and I don't disagree with it, but the problem that spawned social security doesn't go away. It takes a crushing amount of time and money to take care of your aging parents, unless we go down a very dark route, and many elderly are abandoned and it becomes a societal mess. Some approaches I was mulling over: 1. The easiest way is to dilute SS without pushing the years down even further is…

The American elderly are in 2025 the richest generation to have ever existed in human history. Elder poverty can be solved with a comparably much smaller transfer scheme than what we have crafted.

Sigh. I don’t mean the elderly now or even my generation.

I mean the elderly in 50 years time, when Gen Zers and younger have to deal with the same question.

Re: Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

#49

Post by Taikonerd »

slillibri wrote: post #12
simonsarris wrote: post #3

> How severe? A sustainable U.S. debt trajectory would entail elimination of nearly all defense spending or almost all non-defense discretionary outlays, he estimated. Reminder that infrastructure is ~3% of the budget, the military is ~13%. Almost all of the rest are benefits, either health or money, for old people or various poverty reduction schemes. Or debt. Social Security was made when there were ~130:1 worker:r…

Reminder that social security is funded entirely by a separate tax and not debt, so unless you are planning to cut benefits but continue the tax it would do nothing to reduce the deficit or debt.

IIUC, in the future, the SS tax isn't going to cover the benefits that SS will be obliged to pay out. So some analyses model the shortfall as coming out of the government's general budget.

So, yeah, it's "separate" spending in a sense, but it's not totally in its own sandbox.

Re: Solution to US debt crisis is severe austerity triggered by a fiscal calamity

#50

Post by pants2 »

akamaka wrote: post #11

Rather than reading this opinion piece, you can learn more about the “debt crisis” by just studying this chart which shows what percentage of the federal budget goes toward paying off the debt: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S The situation is similar to what it was in the late 1980s, and it can mostly likely be managed with the same level of spending restraints we saw in response to that.

If we're going off of a "share of budget" metric then the fastest way to reduce debt share is to increase spending in other areas!
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