[danans]

> The right says it’s fine as long as it goes to endless wars, and the left says it’s fine when we spend the money on social programs. Both say it’s bad when the other side spends it, but not when their own spends it.

Spending is only one part. The part that almost nobody wants to touch is raising taxes to support the spending.

[davidu]

Because raising taxes has only resulted in more spending, not balancing the budget.

[bryanlarsen]

That's not true. Bill Clinton both slightly raised taxes and significantly lowered spending in relative terms, balancing the budget in the process.

[TheCoelacanth]

Obama also cut the deficit by more than half. It didn't get all the way to a balanced budget because of how bad of a mess Bush left to clean up, but it was moving in the right direction.

[bryanlarsen]

And as a sibling post noted, Bush senior also both raised taxes and lowered spending on a relative basis. So the original assertion is decisively disproven -- half of our modern era presidents (along with the Congress they presided over) did not behave the way they said "only happens".

[weard_beard]

Incentives are key. If Congress does not present a balanced budget then there has to be consequences. Many other countries work this way. No balanced budget forthcoming? Then there is an immediate collapse of the current government or ruling party and run-off elections to replace them.

[ethbr1]

The issue with requiring balanced budgets at the federal level is there are a number of situations where, by any economic theory, you want to run deficits.

So what you really need is an impartial Fed-budgetary-counterpart arbiter that declares when balanced budget rules are and aren't in effect.

And probably toss in what target percent of debt needs to be paid down too.

[Rapzid]

To give credit though it was a largely republican congress that did it. You just need a democrat in the White House to motivate them.

[RickJWagner]

Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich.

Perhaps the best left/right cooperative government of our lifetime.

Skeptical? Review the famous Contract with America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America

[myvoiceismypass]

Contract with America convinced enough rubes in America that Republicans actually had a plan (which netted them Congress!) It was a giant failure in terms of actually accomplishing a fraction of the goals it set out, though.

[RickJWagner]

One result was the small surplus in the budget.

Does Clinton deserve a. Ok the credit, for signing off on it? No, of course not. He deserves some of the credit. The rest goes to the Republican congress, which did the budgeting.

Credit where credit is due.

[zorak8me]

This ignores history. We did raise taxes in the 90s and were paying off our debt. Bush senior made the big boy decision and it left us in amazing shape. Clinton handed over a government to W that was paying off debts and had surplus from 1998-2001.

[ethbr1]

Slight note that Bush Senior also got tossed out of office in part for being fiscally responsible.

We probably want to fix that quirk, if we want politicians more reliably doing the fiscally sound thing.

[zorak8me]

Absolutely. One note though - it wasn’t just the raised tax, it was that he very explicitly promised to not raise taxes. Maybe doesn’t get elected without that promise but I really don’t know enough about politics before Clinton/Newt Gingrich.

[nyeah]

The US had a balanced budget in 2001, after decades of most people claiming that was impossible. The problem with a balanced budget is we all have to live in the real world. The actual real world that you can measure, not each individual's theoretical world of choice.

But stories are much more fun than data, and we put everything on the credit card, and here we are.

[AnimalMuppet]

But cutting taxes has also resulted in more spending.

[ButlerianJihad]

All sibling comments are untrue, because it is the legislative branch that has the "power of the purse", including the ability to raise/lower taxes and pass budgets for spending.

So whether an executive makes campaign promises, takes credit for signing the bills into law, or championing the bills and advocating that Congress pass them, it is ultimately Congress--the House with the Senate--that has done these things with taxes and the budget.

[bryanlarsen]

It's common practice to refer to terms by the president of the period even if they're much less responsible for the effects than is implied.

Taxes went up and relative spending went down during the period when Bush Sr was president and Democrats controlled the House & Senate.

Taxes went up and relative spending went down during the period when Clinton was president and Republicans controlled the House & Senate.

This was not true when they had a trifecta. There are reasons many Americans prefer the parties split power.

[dfxm12]

The part that almost nobody wants to touch is raising taxes to support the spending.

NYC passed their pied a terre tax. Even federally, at least some in congress are trying to push for new taxes. Taxing the wealthy is the most popular way to lower the debt.

https://jayapal.house.gov/2026/03/26/jayapal-warren-boyle-45...

https://thehill.com/business/economy/5554777-gallup-poll-nat...

[danans]

> Taxing the wealthy is the most popular way to lower the debt.

Let me clarify: Few in the mainstream of current politics and media want to discuss higher taxes on the uber wealthy (1B and up) - much less the very wealthy (100M and up).

It's only happening in a few places at the state and local level, but that's challenging because of the ability of the wealthy to move residence between states (something the pied a terre tax cleverly works around).

It also seems to have a lot more purchase these days in forums like this. My comment above about raising taxes would likely have received much more opposition 10 years ago. It seems like the consciousness here has shifted, probably because many here have a front row seat to the emergence of the tech oligarchy.

[ethbr1]

> My comment above about raising taxes would likely have received much more opposition 10 years ago. It seems like the consciousness here has shifted, probably because many here have a front row seat to the emergence of the tech oligarchy.

I think HN specifically, and the country more generally, has become disgusted with the magnitude of wealth concentration.

Very few here probably believe Ellison, Gates, Bezos, Page/Brin, Elon, or Zuckerberg don't deserve to be very rich.

But that reasonable "very" is 2-3 orders of magnitude less than their current net worth.

That's what many people feel is the broken part of end stage capitalism.

[danans]

> I think HN specifically, and the country more generally, has become disgusted with the magnitude of wealth concentration.

I'd like to believe this, but the proof is in the pudding, the pudding being how they vote. Apart from a few well known politicians, most of them aren't running on a platform of countering oligarchs.

A HNer might ask themselves: do I vote for the future where preserve low taxes in case I become massively wealthy, or do I vote for the future where I work for my income?

[AnimalMuppet]

Yeah, this. The one issue that unites left and right (and pretty much everyone else): We do not want to pay for this much government.

One step past there, of course, there is no more unity. Can we just run a deficit forever with no consequences? I have a profound distrust of free lunches, but I can't prove that MMT is false. I'm almost certain that it is, but I can't prove it to the satisfaction of anyone who believes it.

But even if you don't believe MMT, then what? Can we keep going a while longer without too much damage? Should we?

And if not, then we have to cut some things or raise some taxes or both, and that's where the political trench warfare starts.

[emaro]

I want to raise taxes to get rid of billionaires and the historically high inequality resulting in many (most?) of today's problems. More money for the government makes it a win-win. Not American, so I don't have a horse in this particular race.

[jvanderbot]

Thanks for sharing your opinion. The first difficulty in real world (even idealized) politics is voicing a consistent independent stance and thinking through the implications. Many cannot even make it that far.

The second and greater difficulty is that realizing that a solution that is politically untenable is not a solution, it's a campaign slogan. I don't know how we get people to move past this difficulty.

[wormy67]

I assume you are suggesting that a tax on the rich is not politically viable.

When the structural violence that permeates our society finally manifests in the only violence the lower class can execute - this non-viability might change.

It will be a harrowing time- and I hope we avoid this.

The billionaires will cease to exist one way or another.

[jvanderbot]

If your solution to a societal problem is to kill someone because they have something you want, you really dont have a solution.

[LeifCarrotson]

I'm an American with a few horses in this race, and I also want to raise taxes to get rid of billionaires and provide more money to the government.

I'd prefer to use that money for "progressive" things like schools and libraries and parks (voted in 2024 to increase my own taxes on those things specifically, but my neighbors voted against them), but I'd even settle for spending it on the military if it came out of the pockets of the oligarchs to reduce inequality.

[jvanderbot]

If only there were more agreeable ways to create beautiful public spaces and public services.

[eggprices]

Every other country seems to manage it. Those countries also don't have school shootings.

[reactordev]

Money is make believe if it’s not backed by something. Ever since 1970s, money has been a figment of imaginations. We only have a semblance of balancing (or attempting to) the budget but reality is they just print the paper or update a sql row. Done. More money.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Ever since 1970s, money has been a figment of imaginations

Money has always been a social construct. There is no fundamental particle of currency.

[reactordev]

right, something we have assigned a value to. We disagree on. We find the common denominator and have a deal or we don't. could be a sticky note, could be a rock, but we decided it's 2.5"x6" paper with ink on it.

[mothballed]

There was no deal, except maybe initially the promise to exchange for gold that the government defaulted on.

The government said pay taxes in USD or go to jail. They pay their contractors and employees USD (some of which can essentially be "eased" out of thin air). After those people get it, they can say "jump bitch" and you or someone you want to trade with will do what they say, because without those USD you won't be able to settle your tax debts.

[throw0101a]

> There was no deal, except maybe initially the promise to exchange for gold that the government defaulted on.

Gold came into the "money" game quite late. The earliest forms of money we have are with credit, on tablets dating back to Ur III (>3000 BC); gold came later (Lydians in 700 BC).

Credit has been part of many societies, even that had gold/silver floating around (because for most of the folks who were near the bottom, they didn't have enough to lay claim to any precious metal):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5,000_Years

Even the much-vaunted Gold Standard was only really a thing for ~50 years:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard

And it's not like it provided price stability:

* https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch...

In some circumstances the use of gold as the base of currencies caused problems:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1857

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression#Causes_of_the_...

[mothballed]

We've gotten sidetracked somewhere. I replied to this:

>but we decided it's 2.5"x6" paper with ink on it.

It was clearly referring to USD, not whatever the David Graeber of the IWW was saying happened 5000 years ago while talking about "everyday communism."

Since ~1792 up until, depending on when you want to argue, some time in the 20th century USD was backed by or defined by gold or silver.

Price stability has gone down the toilet since the 70s when the government defaulted on its gold backing. Prices were remarkably more stable under the gold standard. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50060e33c4aa3d...

As for gold standard an 50 years or some such (IDK about those numbers, but lets take in on face for a moment), sure but it was a direct drop in for silver standard which lasted "from the Sumerians c. 3000 BC until 1873." [0] The idea there was a precious metals backing, not that the PM has to necessarily be gold.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_standard

[JumpCrisscross]

> without those USD you won't be able to settle your tax debts

In countries where people don't want to hold the local currency, they exchange whatever for local currency when they need it.

[mothballed]

That's where "or someone you want to trade with" comes into play. It turns out it's highly useful to have the currency that ~300M people with the largest tax debts in the world need. There's no other currency backed by that much violence.

You can always be assured there is some American who desperately wants to stay out of jail, and someone will want to buy their stuff.