[tsjackson]

Too slow. While I fully agree that taxes have gotten out of whack and should be raised, raising taxes would have an impact a year from now (way too slow of timeframe to manage inflation). Additionally, practically speaking, the government would have one shot and no realistic way to quickly correct if they raised taxes too much or too little. Finally, there's so much uncertainty in the market when major political decisions like that are afoot, that you risk doing harm just from the perception.

The fed has the power to act quickly. They raised rates a little on almost a monthly basis last year. Each was a little experiment. If they raised them too much, they could reduce them the next month. If they raised them too little to fully counter inflation, they could continue raising them.

Finally, the issue isn't getting "money" out of the system - it's getting purchasing power out of the system - reducing demand. And most people are buying 5-20% of houses, banks are buying the rest. Most large businesses aren't paying cash reserves to pay employees, they're using debt to pay those salaries.

[tsjackson]

Also, reducing spending is even slower than reducing taxes.

The vast majority of government spending is on Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and defense spending. Politically those are untouchable, mostly for good reasons - reducing any of them will result in people literally dying.

The vast majority of what's left is hugely impactful high ROI activities like scientific research, infrastructure projects, and other basic good governance activities.