The First "America First" Movement should tell you all you need to know about the Second one

[81usaf92]

Again, economics is called "the Dismal Science" for a reason. The numbers are unforgiving.
All I am saying is that when you are deficit spending today, you are saying no to some desirable things next year, or thirty years hence.
It is like renting-to-own a $250 flat panel TV from Easy Rental for $25/month for 3 years. By the time you finishing paying for it, your $250 tv will cost you $1200.
In FY 2025, the federal government will spend $749,000,000,000 just servicing the debt already accumulated in past years. Because we said, "yes," to some worthy thing 30 years ago, we are now saddled with 3/4 of a trillion dollars each year to simply tread water. The $749,000,000,000 does nothing to pay off the principal. It merely buys us another year.
So saying "yes" to worthy goals today (and if we were running a $1,800,000,000,000 budget surplus today, I'd be happy to send money to Ukraine) while continuing to deficit spend merely adds to the problem.

I think the point I was making wasn’t clear. I’m talking about rhetoric and the sacrificing of traditional American democratic values to achieve a supposedly self interest goal that really doesn’t exist. The cause is to prevent the people saying “America First” from saying their true issues. For instance “if America is first then is Russia second and brown people last?” Can you honestly say the people you have encountered saying this slogan wouldn’t be opposed to that order?

 

[Bamabuzzard]

This "it wasn't me" nonsense is tiresome. We are the richest country on earth but the money is held by 500 families. The Trump tax cuts are going to increase the deficit by an extra 3.4 trillion dollars (conservatively, per CNBC) over the next ten years.

Europe is doing more for their citizens with less. Since Reagan and his Voodoo economics we've gone from a creditor nation to a debtor nation. But we're gonna raise taxes on the workers by minimum 15% across the board (tariffs) and give people, if you can call them people, who have more money already than they can ever spend, even more money! Their excess money has already distorted the housing market and rentals, pricing out first-time homebuyers. The business rental rates are so high for mom-and-pop stores that the numbers don't work. The maniacs are buying up all the arable land and even the water supplies. There will be a reckoning.

I NEVER hear deficit hawks talk about tax reform. If you give the rich all the money and borrow the money to do it, and then complain about entitlements, you're ridiculous.

And seeing the things our government spends money on, do you really think (and be honest with yourself) our government would spend it on something that helps the average citizen? And by the average citizen I mean the middle class who sits in an economic vice, stuck between the rich who has plenty of money and the "poor", who get subsidy after subsidy. The money they do have access to goes to so much frivolous crap, it's pathetic. What makes you think getting the rich to pay more is going to somehow benefit you/us? You're assuming they're going to use that money on you/me.....when that's the furthest thing from the truth.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Not only do I remember every single day of the Clinton Administration, I even remember when he tried to impose a health care plan on Americans that would have cost them (and the estimates are NEVER close to right, it's always more) ONE TRILLION DOLLARS over the first ten years (per AI); another site says an estimated $331B over six years, which sounds pretty close to the same since it would only go up.

Without the voters standing up and saying, "No, we ain't having this" and GOP opposition, Clinton never would have had a balanced budget, either.

You don't get to pretend 30 years after the fact that Clinton was some genius who caused this all on his own; if he had had his way, he wouldn't have gotten those balanced budgets.

And lest anybody think Clinton ever actually INTENDED to balance the budget, let's go back in time to 1995, when Clinton stood before a group of rich people and said he had taxed them too much. And even more than that - it was the REPUBLICANS' FAULT he had taxed them too much. He then followed that with one of his typical flip-flops about not regretting it, and capped it off with the excuse his mother told him never to talk after 7pm.

Bill Clinton DID have a balanced budget during four years of his Presidency. That part is true. The part that is nowhere close to being true is that it was the result of him getting his way and taking the lead and reducing the deficit; the 1993 budget deal would have been undone by his colossal healthcare plan, except it did not pass.

 

[Tidewater]

This "it wasn't me" nonsense is tiresome. We are the richest country on earth but the money is held by 500 families. The Trump tax cuts are going to increase the deficit by an extra 3.4 trillion dollars (conservatively, per CNBC) over the next ten years.

Europe is doing more for their citizens with less. Since Reagan and his Voodoo economics we've gone from a creditor nation to a debtor nation. But we're gonna raise taxes on the workers by minimum 15% across the board (tariffs) and give people, if you can call them people, who have more money already than they can ever spend, even more money! Their excess money has already distorted the housing market and rentals, pricing out first-time homebuyers. The business rental rates are so high for mom-and-pop stores that the numbers don't work. The maniacs are buying up all the arable land and even the water supplies. There will be a reckoning.

I NEVER hear deficit hawks talk about tax reform. If you give the rich all the money and borrow the money to do it, and then complain about entitlements, you're ridiculous.

Two problems with that thinking.
1. Reducing taxes is not "giving" anybody any money. Tax revenues are not the government's money. Tax revenue is the peoples' money that the government takes. We have collectively decided that the wealthy can pay more than the poor. How much more is the question. (I have noted here many times before that in 1942 the top US federal marginal income tax rate was 100%. All income over $25,000 was taxed at a 100% rate) In 2020, Democrats had the White House, House, and Senate. Why did they not take that opportunity to raise tax rates? I hear Democrats talking about making the rich "pay their fair share," but they never get around to actually implementing the policy. Why not? Heck, if they did, I would support them (depending on the tax rate increases in question).
2. The federal government cannot control what money it takes in, at least not directly. The federal government can control directly what it spends (due to the Anti-Deficiency Act). It is illegal for a federal official to spend more federal dollars than allocated and Congress does the allocating.
The federal government can project what a tax will bring in, but it cannot demand it.
Let me give you an extreme example. The total accumulated US debt is $36,000,000,000,000. The US (for sake of the argument) imports 36,000 Japanese automobiles. Simple problem to solve. Wipe out the debt by imposting a $1,000,000,000 tariff per car. A Japanese car that used to cost $25,000 now costs $1,000,025,000. Those poor buyers (suckers!) are now going to pay off the national debt in one year, right?
Except it does not work that way. People respond to incentives. Increase taxes on X, then you get less X. Impose a $1,000,000,000 tariff on Toyota Corollas and people will buy Fords, or BMWs or whatever, anything but a Japanese car. Regardless, that tax is not going to bring in $36,000,000,000 in a year. In fact, I would bet that tax is not going to bring in a single dollar because nobody is going to buy a $25,000 for $1,000,025,000. Not a single person, so no Japanese cars will be imported that year. You can raise tax rates and crater tax revenues if the price elasticity of demand is high.
Now, put a 50% tariff on insulin, and, at least in the short term, the consumers will pay that tariff (or die). If the price elasticity of demand is low (as in the case of insulin), you can raise tax rates and increase tax revenues.
Most taxable items or activities are somewhere between these two extremes. Figuring out what to tax and at what rates is the challenge.

 

[Tidewater]

I think the point I was making wasn’t clear. I’m talking about rhetoric and the sacrificing of traditional American democratic values to achieve a supposedly self interest goal that really doesn’t exist. The cause is to prevent the people saying “America First” from saying their true issues. For instance “if America is first then is Russia second and brown people last?” Can you honestly say the people you have encountered saying this slogan wouldn’t be opposed to that order?

That is quite a rhetorical sleight of hand there. It would be more useful if you could provide an example of someone in nhe "America First" camp who said, "Russia second and brown people last."
I do not know anybody who says, "America First" as an absolute principle. Heck, even Trump just spent a bunch of cash to bomb the crap out of Iran.
I do believe that the fiscal position of the United States ought to be a factor in what we spend today (and, of we had a time machine, what we spent in the past).

 

[81usaf92]

That is quite a rhetorical sleight of hand there. It would be more useful if you could provide an example of someone in nhe "America First" camp who said, "Russia second and brown people last."
I do not know anybody who says, "America First" as an absolute principle. Heck, even Trump just spent a bunch of cash to bomb the crap out of Iran.
I do believe that the fiscal position of the United States ought to be a factor in what we spend today (and, of we had a time machine, what we spent in the past).

Down here… there are far too many who post crap with Putin riding shirtless and presenting Zelenskyy as a bad actor and is to blame for the US economic situation.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

And seeing the things our government spends money on, do you really think (and be honest with yourself) our government would spend it on something that helps the average citizen? And by the average citizen I mean the middle class who sits in an economic vice, stuck between the rich who has plenty of money and the "poor", who get subsidy after subsidy. The money they do have access to goes to so much frivolous crap, it's pathetic. What makes you think getting the rich to pay more is going to somehow benefit you/us? You're assuming they're going to use that money on you/me.....when that's the furthest thing from the truth.

But here's the other thing (and we're turning a nationalist thread about hypocrisy into another deficit thread about hypocrisy....but then again, I must be new here):

In the end, the voters will fire any politician, Republican or Democrat who "does the right thing" and raises taxes or cuts spending OR BOTH. Set aside the intended additional spending of Bill Clinton on socialized Hillarycare.

The 1993 Democrats:
a) passed a huge tax increase (I believe it was the largest or 2nd largest at the time)
b) passed spending cuts in the "out" years
c) got absolutely clobbered in the midterms at voters mad over tax increases and Hillarycare

One of the more famous was Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (who is now Chelsea Clinton's mother-in-law) of Pennsylvania. In 1992, she won a seat in a Republican district (since 1916) BARELY because she was on the Perot team as far as deficit reduction. She held out her vote, which was the clinching vote in the House for the 1993 budget. She was opposed to it - as a Democrat mind you - because it did not offer enough in spending cuts. She cut a deal with Clinton to come to her district and talk about entitlement reform and passed the budget.

So....Democrat in Republican district (they care about deficits, right?), votes to reduce the deficit....and loses her seat after being jeered with "good-bye" from Republicans who opposed the budget.

The politician who does this is going to be unemployed, so I think US blaming the politicians is a bit two-faced on our own parts.

"Well, they cut spending in Program A by 5% but they cut it in (my favored) Program B by 6%, so OUT THEY GO!!"

 

[UAH]

Two problems with that thinking.
1. Reducing taxes is not "giving" anybody any money. Tax revenues are not the government's money. Tax revenue is the peoples' money that the government takes. We have collectively decided that the wealthy can pay more than the poor. How much more is the question. (I have noted here many times before that in 1942 the top US federal marginal income tax rate was 100%. All income over $25,000 was taxed at a 100% rate) In 2020, Democrats had the White House, House, and Senate. Why did they not take that opportunity to raise tax rates? I hear Democrats talking about making the rich "pay their fair share," but they never get around to actually implementing the policy. Why not? Heck, if they did, I would support them (depending on the tax rate increases in question).
2. The federal government cannot control what money it takes in, at least not directly. The federal government can control directly what it spends (due to the Anti-Deficiency Act). It is illegal for a federal official to spend more federal dollars than allocated and Congress does the allocating.
The federal government can project what a tax will bring in, but it cannot demand it.
Let me give you an extreme example. The total accumulated US debt is $36,000,000,000,000. The US (for sake of the argument) imports 36,000 Japanese automobiles. Simple problem to solve. Wipe out the debt by imposting a $1,000,000,000 tariff A Japanese car that used to cost $25,000 now costs $1,000,025,000. Those poor buyers (suckers!) are now going to pay off the national debt in one year, right?
Except it does not work that way. People respond to incentives. Increase taxes on X, then you get less X. Impose a $1,000,000,000 tariff on Toyota Corollas and people will buy Fords, or BMWs or whatever, anything but a Japanese car. Regardless, that tax is not going to bring in $36,000,000,000 in a year. In fact, I would bet that tax is not going to bring in a single dollar because nobody is going to buy a $25,000 for $1,000,025,000. Not a single person, so no Japanese cars will be imported that year. You can raise tax rates and crater tax revenues if the price elasticity of demand is high.
Now, put a 50% tariff on insulin, and, at least in the short term, the consumers will pay that tariff (or die). If the price elasticity of demand is low (as in the case of insulin), you can raise tax rates and increase tax revenues.
Most taxable items or activities are somewhere between these two extremes. Figuring out what to tax and at what rates is the challenge.

That same principle of course should apply to how we apply tarriffs to specific countries and specific products. Some foreign products are irreplaceable in a given timeframe eg. winter vegetables from Mexico or rare earth magnets from China. Other products are highly subsidized such as steel from China. Other countries like Brazil, Japan and the EU enact barriers through regulatory means to keep US goods out. None of that knowledge or thought process has gone into how the Trump Administration conducts trade negotiations.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

But here's the other thing (and we're turning a nationalist thread about hypocrisy into another deficit thread about hypocrisy....but then again, I must be new here):

In the end, the voters will fire any politician, Republican or Democrat who "does the right thing" and raises taxes or cuts spending OR BOTH. Set aside the intended additional spending of Bill Clinton on socialized Hillarycare.

The 1993 Democrats:
a) passed a huge tax increase (I believe it was the largest or 2nd largest at the time)
b) passed spending cuts in the "out" years
c) got absolutely clobbered in the midterms at voters mad over tax increases and Hillarycare

One of the more famous was Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (who is now Chelsea Clinton's mother-in-law) of Pennsylvania. In 1992, she won a seat in a Republican district (since 1916) BARELY because she was on the Perot team as far as deficit reduction. She held out her vote, which was the clinching vote in the House for the 1993 budget. She was opposed to it - as a Democrat mind you - because it did not offer enough in spending cuts. She cut a deal with Clinton to come to her district and talk about entitlement reform and passed the budget.

So....Democrat in Republican district (they care about deficits, right?), votes to reduce the deficit....and loses her seat after being jeered with "good-bye" from Republicans who opposed the budget.

The politician who does this is going to be unemployed, so I think US blaming the politicians is a bit two-faced on our own parts.

"Well, they cut spending in Program A by 5% but they cut it in (my favored) Program B by 6%, so OUT THEY GO!!"

Oh, no doubt, at this point, anyone who talks about raising taxes would be roasted over open flames at the poles. We're Americans, where we want/expect to lose a ton of weight and not change one thing about how we eat or exercise. Then get upset and blame someone else when it doesn't happen.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Oh, no doubt, at this point, anyone who talks about raising taxes would be roasted over open flames at the poles. We're Americans, where we want/expect to lose a ton of weight and not change one thing about how we eat or exercise. Then get upset and blame someone else when it doesn't happen.

I'm sure you remember (or at least know about) the 1981 Air Traffic Controller's strike where Reagan fired a chunk of the workforce for an illegal strike. Set aside the wrong lessons the ideologues learned from it. Little forgotten is something that happened that set the stage for the implosion of PATCO.

Prior to Robert Poli taking over as head of the PATCO union in 1980, they were headed for ten years by a guy named John Leyden. In 77-78 time frame, he negotiated a contract that wound up with maybe about 1/2 of the union getting a raise. You can probably predict human nature from this point. The half that didn't get the raise got angry about it and raised a ruckus, which was part of what was behind their "let's run right off the end of the cliff without a parachute" action they took in 1981.

The part that's even more reckless is that UP TO THE LAST MINUTE, they had out-negotiated and outfoxed the Reagan administration to agree to what his own advisors were telling him was an ill-advised and ridiculous contract that was going to cause them problems with other public sector unions. PATCO had 80% of what they wanted in writing. How often does anyone get 80% of what they want in a negotiation?

But that's when the militants in the union decided, "If we got 80% just by threatening, we'll get 100% by going on strike."

And you know the rest.......they couldn't take the W when they had it and in the revisionist history, Reagan is the mean old man who destroyed unions.

===========================

I feel about taxes the way Bob Dole said voters feel about negative ads:
"They say don't like them, but they'll watch them. That's what I've learned."

 

[Tidewater]

Down here… there are far too many who post crap with Putin riding shirtless and presenting Zelenskyy as a bad actor and is to blame for the US economic situation.

Point taken.
My own view is that Putin is a liar, a thief, and an antidemocratic dictator responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands. (Come to think of it, he shares a lot characteristics with Abraham Lincoln, whom I hold in equal esteem).

I would still urge that decisions about military and economic foreign aid ought to be taken in light of the fiscal and military situation of the United States. I would not like to see GIs killed in a 2026 fight with China because we depleted our war stocks of artillery ammo or Patriot missiles, giving too much to Ukraine. I would not like the US to plunge itself into insolvency, spending too much on foreign aid recipients (or any other spending projects). If lenders decide the US is no longer worth lending money to, the consequences for the US (and the world at large) will be catastrophic (defined as "millions of people dead as a result"). The more debt we take on, the more likely that is to happen.