[aionaiodfgnio]

We know how to reduce the deficit: raise taxes on the rich. It's not rocket appliances. It's just a complete non-starter given the current GOP. The people screaming the loudest about the deficit are the same people preventing any real steps to fix it.

[ativzzz]

You and I both know that if we raise more money, we will spend more money. There is no situation when the U.S. makes more money without immediately increasing spending

[aionaiodfgnio]

Thanks, Dr. Freud.

Wait, I don't believe that at all, for the following reasons:

1. The opposite hasn't been true. We have seen two dramatic tax cuts in recent history which absolutely did not lead to reduced spending.

2. The majority of federal spending is for healthcare or social security. Spending in these areas is somewhat hard to change, even with the political will. It's certainly damn near impossible to decrease such spending; it would immediately cause massive hardship for the most vulnerable people in our society (and probably riots riots).

3. The U.S. has run a surplus before and somehow didn't immediately bet it all on the ponies.

Perhaps our modern politics are so dysfunctional that there is no way out.

[taeric]

I'm curious how/why you think that? Tax rates were, quite "famously" much higher in the past. Comically so.

Even at a "personal debt" level, the main way out of debt is to make more money. Always has been. "Saving your way" out is a pipe dream that mostly doesn't happen. Especially as people have been coerced into paying so many private companies for things.