Monday, April 9, 2018

The economy...stupid

I find the economy, taxes, and the federal reserve hard to understand on my best days. Below is a summary of a nice opinion piece from the Washington Post written by a group of individuals that served on the US governments economic committee.

Main points:
1.) We have rising debt because of tax cuts, unfunded wars, and an aging population. We do not have rising debt because of increased spending on entitlements (despite Republicans constant whining). Entitlement allocations have not significantly increased. However, the number of old people has increased substantially over the last 10-20 years because of the aging boomer population. In addition, companies and government have decimated pension programs = more people need social security benefits. Also, rising health care costs have increased the cost of medicare and medicaid. We are not spending more on poor and sick people. We are barely treading water.

2.) Tax cuts should be reserved for times when the country is in recessions.  These tough economic times are best healed and limited by influxes of cash. Tax cuts should not be undertaken when the economy is doing well because then there is no room for further tax cuts in the next recession. FYI: we just passed tax cuts when we have a superbly strong economy.

3.) Corporate tax reform is not a bad idea when done intelligently. We should have decreased the corporate tax rate and closed loop holes. We only decreased the corporate tax rate. Therefore, we as a country have given up a huge amount of revenue when we most need it for our own citizens.

4.) The current economic policy is irresponsible and going to cause catastrophic problems. The rising debt and decreased revenue for the the next 5-10 years is going to decimate our ability to care for our citizens, fix our roads and bridges, and be competitive on the global stage. Where are the grown ups?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-debt-crisis-is-coming-but-dont-blame-entitlements/2018/04/08/968df5c2-38fb-11e8-9c0a-85d477d9a226_story.html?utm_term=.fe8daef1a506


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