It’s going to be very difficult to get the U.S. Debt under control without making voters angry 

The options are some mix of:

- higher taxes
- cutting defense 
- cutting social security 
- cutting Medicare 
- cutting Medicaid 

Doing nothing will result inflation eventually which could be very painful for everyone

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Not really a perfect storm but a deliberate approach to 1) cutting spending and waste which VP Gore worked on first researching then targeting cuts (unlike DOGE which felt haphazard) and 2) removed prior tax cuts 

And military spending is a grift. Full stop. 

But I agree there’s no way to get back there because of the compounding effect over time.

1999 was kinda the perfect storm that helped create a surplus.  Not sure that's really replicable but would be nice!

Agree that military spending is a big elephant in the room here.  Kinda interesting to see the price of defense falling with cheaper drones/technology (See Ukraine's recent attack on Russia)

Old people just kick the can so yeah we definitely need age and term limits but tricky when you need the people who benefit from the lack of these limits to vote for them and pass them

you forgot time travel — go back to 1999 when we had a surplus and just don’t do this. Fire up the delorean!

This is why I have respect for Rep Massey even though I disagree with him on pretty much everything else lol but I appreciate him standing firm on this particular issue. 

DOGE had potential here but instead it just shifted funds — no major fraud, waste or abuse really found or gotten rid of. It was just shifted to military contacts elsewhere cuz we really needed $400 million for Tesla trucks. If we refuse to deal with military spending, there’s no way forward. 

And here’s the other big problem: old people don’t care — they’re gonna be dead soon. So does a 70+ yr old congressperson/president  really care about the Debt? Nope. That’s someone else’s problem. We needed age & term limits decades ago. 

On social security—the problem was the govt borrowing from it. Yes we should raise the age but you can’t cut it. It’s not the government’s money. this all makes me so 😡

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Yeah this is the likeliest answer tbh

Were the most innovative country in the world so hopefully we can figure something out

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Tech (AI esp) is gonna have to bail us out

Really the only option bc it incentives you mentioned

Shit. So I need to flip this over the X axis and make it red? ☹️

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The point is though, it is literally the tax cuts that decreased revenue 3x more than any spending cuts enacted along side them. We are where we are bc of the cuts.

“relative to earlier projections, spending is down, not up. But revenues are down significantly more. If not for the Bush tax cuts and their extensions —as well as the Trump tax cuts —revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio (debt as a percentage of the economy) would be declining. Instead, these tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt since their enactment and are responsible for 57 percent of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, and more than 90 percent of the increase in the debt ratio if the one-time costs of bills responding to COVID-19 and the Great Recession are excluded.”

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/ Tax Cuts Are Primarily Responsible for the Increasing Debt Ratio - Center for American Progress

The thing is that the wealthy are already taxed pretty highly and the top 40% of taxpayers pay more in taxes than they receive in govt benefits while the bottom 60% receive more benefits than they pay for with taxes 

For example, in 2021, the top 1% of taxpayers paid 45.8% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% paid just 2.3%. 

So the U.S. tax system is already pretty progressive where larger income households pay a larger share in taxes

Tough problem and everyone will have to contribute in some way to get this under control

Or appropriately tax the disproportionately wealthy which is overwhelmingly popular 🤷‍♂️ not sure why anyone acts like it’s difficult to figure out. 

It’s almost like the people who actually decide that are benefiting from the broken system to advantage themselves. @unusualwhales they are indeed.

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No, it wasn’t always going to be hard. It hasn’t been hard. 

OK, so you’re worried about the acceleration. 

That makes sense. But you know that our currency is Fiat right? You know they just print more money when we need it right?

Like during Covid. It wasn’t a problem then. So why will it be a problem now?

It was always gonna be hard but it’s been accelerating at a much faster rate which could cause lots of issues as it relates to the U.S. Dollar and global monetary policy

Why do you think it’s gonna be hard now if it wasn’t hard before?

You’re implying it’s out of control. What do you think will happen if it keeps going up? 

Debt ceiling is a topic of conversation every other year and all it does is go up.

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it’s just a game of chicken where the parties play hot potato with responsibility 

one party says it’s too high and they gotta fix, gets elected, then continues on same path due to aforementioned voter anger

Leaning heavily on cutting defense and taxing the rich would result in the least amount of pain for most people, but that will never happen without a revolution 

So the most likely scenario is widespread austerity measures that still don't do enough to stop inflation

Not sure if option 2 is realistic, this book opened my eyes why it may not be possible

Hey this is my plan too!!!

Higher self taxes (yeet any and all extra money to The Plan)
Cutting eating out (cook
at home)
Cutting aping/minting (claim only)
Cutting other lifestyle habits (hard)

turtleneck so high i can’t see my haters.

@fdotart this might be viva's chance to warpcast

someone has to sacrifice the next election for the country

It hasn't helped in the past years either. We need a gold-backed currency or BTC.

Everyone wants to live off someone else’s money until the bill comes due.