[rayiner]

America can’t solve this problem democratically. Trump has taught the GOP you can win elections through targeted bribery (e.g. No Taxes on Tips), avoiding hard decisions (e.g. no cuts to entitlements), and distracting people with expensive spectacle. Meanwhile, Democrats are a collection of interest groups held together by patronage. In the recent election, Democrats were knee-capped because inflation made it impossible to promise expensive new programs. With expanding benefits off the table as a carrot, Trump was able to make big gains among Democrat groups (e.g. Bangladeshi immigrants in Queens, Muslim immigrants in Michigan) that lean more conservative on issues other than government welfare.

That leaves everyone dealing in fictions: the fiction that you can reduce debt by cutting taxes, the fiction you can reduce debt by increasing spending, and fictions about how much you really balance the books by targeting only “billionaires” instead of taxing the middle class.

[DoesntMatter22]

The only problem that exists is spending too much money. They could fix this overnight if people were willing to give up public entitlements and healthcare support. But they aren’t willing to so the US will eventually see hyper inflation or less likely bankruptcy

[rayiner]

No, you can also raise taxes. The deficit is 4% of GDP. If we raised taxes by 4% of GDP, we'd still be less than the OECD average. We'd be the same as Australia, which is the second lowest-tax Anglosphere country.

[DoesntMatter22]

We are spending 3 trillion extra dollars than we take in taxes per year. That means taxes would go up by 75 percent. Even then it doesn’t matter because we will spend even more. Everyone agrees to spend, no one agrees to cut

[rayiner]

I must have been looking at old data, but it looks like $1.9 trillion in FY2026. So that's 6.5% of GDP rather than 4% like I said above. Taxes as a percentage of GDP is currently about 25%, so going up to 31.5% would be a 26% jump. Not great, but not catastrophic.

But I agree that if we raised taxes we would just spend more. :(

[9rx]

If taxes are raised then the people have to pay for the services, which is exactly what they don't want to have to do. That is the whole appeal of having those services — that they are, for all intents and purposes, free.

[rayiner]

I mean this is the problem with half a century of global-hegemony-fueled debt binging. We could balance the budget our taxes would still be $2.7 trillion lower than what they would be if we were at the EU average.

[DoesntMatter22]

Hegemony is large irrelevant as much of Europe is facing the exact same issue, some of it much worse than the US

[QuarterReptile]

The overnight fix, to be perfectly clear, would require illegal firing of federal judges and getting rid of the filibuster, just to start fixing.

[LocalH]

The real overnight fix would be something we can't say on the internet without getting banned from whatever site we say it on

[TimorousBestie]

Eventually, paraleipsis will be insufficient to protect yourself from this sort of behavior, c.f. the new Comey indictment.

[UltraSane]

Taxes can always be raised before going bankrupt.

[DoesntMatter22]

Taxes would have to go up so dramatically that people would completely be protesting in the streets and rioting. Governments always just print more money instead. Which is why we are at the spot we are at.

[UltraSane]

They would not have to go up that much.

[DoesntMatter22]

Close to 70 percent

[UltraSane]

Show your math.

[bdangubic]

we should give up 765 things first before entitlements - starting with cutting Department of War budget by about 90% and go from there

[rayiner]

That would be irrational. Even the UK and France spend 2% of GDP on defense, and they live under America's shield. Cutting our spending down to their level would save $400 billion/year. That's not peanuts, but that's only 1/3 of the deficit.

Having sufficient capacity for violence is indispensable for the existence of a state. You need a military so you can kill people in other countries, and you need police so you can maintain an internal monopoly on violence. You can't have state-funded preschool if you don't have a state. The Ukrainians unfortunately are learning this the hard way right now.

[jacquesm]

> Even the UK and France spend 2% of GDP on defense, and they live under America's shield.

You mean: America lives under the UK and France's shield. The last time that US soldiers died to defend France or the UK is a long time ago, much more recently French and UK soldiers died for (amongst others) the USA. Not that anybody seems to remember.

Oh and on a per-capita basis more people from the UK died in the Gulf war than from the USA.

But this isn't a matter of keeping score it is standing together and at least trying to maintain some kind of world order. One problem with that is that you may have to refrain from threatening your allies with invasion.

[dh2022]

Re: "You can't have state-funded preschool if you don't have a state" - USA is protected by two immense oceans right and left and two huge, weak and pliable neighbors up and down. From all sides USA is well protected without spending hundreds of billions anually. About ballistic missiles threat - USA already has 1,200 nuclear warheads deployed in various forms (submarine, air force, ground silos) so MADD takes care of that.

With 2% of GDP USA would take care of all its defense needs. USA does not need 11 aircraft carrier groups, about 100 nuclear-powered submarines, about 2,000 jet fighters, only God knows how many destroyers, to protect itself.

[rayiner]

I agree the US could take care of its defense needs with 2% of GDP. But that would be a 40% cut, not a 90% cut. What we wouldn't be able to do is commit to protecting Europe or backstopping global capitalism.

[bdangubic]

> What we wouldn't be able to do is commit to protecting Europe or backstopping global capitalism.

We voted "America First" just recently. The 10% of the current budget should be enough to protect us against Canada and Mexico... except of course that budget is not for defense...

[AngryData]

Who would ever want to invade the US? You would be destroying nearly everything of value because half the US economy is based on financial services. And it would make middle eastern insurgencies seem like childs play compared to the 10x higher gun ownership rate with better and more modern firearms in the US with a far higher percentage of practiced shooters and veterans.

[TimorousBestie]

> Who would ever want to invade the US?

Effectively, no one. The CCP doesn’t have the logistics capability or manpower to manage the largest occupation in the history of the world from half a world away.

They can and do want to destabilize American hegemony, but that doesn’t necessitate an end to the American state. My read is they prefer something like the British model for ex-imperials.