Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Noted Musk while talking of putting hardship on Americans who need help the most still couldn't help but direct the spotlight to himself:

Later on, Musk said that he would “balance the budget immediately,” adding: “Obviously, a lot of people who are taking advantage of government are going to be upset about that. I’ll probably need a lot of security, but it’s got to be done. And if it’s not done, we’ll just go bankrupt.”"

He's a lime-lighter, like Trump. Then Musk says 'but it has to be done', but really how pressing is it. And since the Trump
tax cuts contributed hugely to the debt why shouldn't the most wealthy pay more to help reduce that debt. See:

Why You Shouldn’t Obsess About the National Debt
"Att: OMOLIVES - The Cowardice of the Deficit Scolds"
[...]
Specifically, let me make three points. First, while $34 trillion is a very large figure, it’s a lot less scary than many imagine if you put it in historical and international context. Second, to the extent debt is a concern, making debt sustainable wouldn’t be at all hard in terms of the straight economics; it’s almost entirely a political problem. Finally, people who claim to be deeply concerned about debt are, all too often, hypocrites — the level of their hypocrisy often reaches the surreal.
[...]
So what would it take to stabilize debt as a percentage of G.D.P. for the next 30 years? Bobby Kogan and Jessica Vela of the Center for American Progress, working with Congressional Budget Office numbers, estimate .. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/what-would-it-take-to-stabilize-the-debt-to-gdp-ratio/ .. that we would need to increase taxes or cut spending by 2.1 percent of G.D.P.

That isn’t a big number! (Yes, the exact number could be either bigger or smaller, but in either case probably not by enough to change the basic point.) America collects a much smaller percentage of its G.D.P. in taxes than most other rich countries .. https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-revenue.htm ; collecting an extra two percentage points would still leave us a low-tax nation and would be unlikely to hurt the economy. If stabilizing debt seems hard, that’s only because given our deeply divided politics, even modest steps toward responsibility are extremely hard to take.

And by deeply divided politics I mostly mean Republicans, who declaim the evils of debt while pursuing policies that put long-run fiscal sustainability even farther out of reach. In a related analysis, Kogan and Vela estimate .. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/permanently-extending-the-trump-tax-cuts-would-increase-upward-pressure-on-the-debt-ratio-by-more-than-50-percent/ .. that permanently extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts — many of which are scheduled to expire .. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/republicans-4-trillion-question-should-they-pay-for-extending-trump-tax-cuts-ebbe67f3 .. after 2025 — would substantially worsen the fiscal outlook. Yet it’s hard to find Republicans in Congress opposing such an extension.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175028919

... and in reply ...

The Trump Tax Cuts Led to Record-Low, Not High, Revenues Outside of a Recession
[...]
The only reason revenues as a percentage of GDP have hovered around their 50-year average, rather than continue to rise, is that Congress keeps enacting expensive tax cuts. Not only are revenues now much lower than they were in 2000; they’re dramatically lower than expected, given how much larger real GDP per capita is now than in 2000. The unemployment rate is roughly the same as it was in 2000, and average wages and salaries, after adjusting for inflation, are 22 percent higher.13

"The only reason revenues as a percentage of GDP have hovered
around their 50-year average, rather than continue to rise, is that
Congress keeps enacting expensive tax cuts."

But when measured as a percentage of GDP, revenues are 2.8 percentage points lower than they were in 2000. After adjusting for the size of the economy, the United States is collecting $809 billion less per year than it was in 2000, despite being richer and having similar employment.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=175049527