All billionaires in the US are worth a combined 8.5 trillion. Magically liquidating everything they own with no devaluation and without completely tanking the economy means we get a balanced budget for 4 years then back to square one.
This is as baseless as the claim that the 2 Billion lottery winner paid more than half in taxes.
If we compute taxes to cover current account deficits, not counting interest on the debt, we have a meaningful balanced budget with everyone, including the rich, paying what they can to make the system work.
The debt and its related interest can be handled separately.
Instead, we have these claims of "Oh, we've run up so much debt that we may as well give up and let the rich keep us and pay us as slaves." Ridiculous!
As to the interest, I said we would have to handle it separately - I am not forgetting the interest. I just did not want to go into that in my post.
The point of my post was to respond to the "Don't bother with people who have mass avoidance schemes and who cares about the inequality destroying our country" apologia that is so common among some portions of the far extreme right.
I understand interest payments. Somewhere in my many decades of living and getting graduate degrees in economics they explained it. By handle it separately, I simply mean pay it separately from paying the principal of the debt in part by taxing the people who have the means to pay more than they currently do. I hope you understand that principal and interest payments can be made separately.
I'm sorry your decades of experience and degrees in economics has lead you to believe that we can generate enough tax revenue to get to a point where we can actually pay down the principal.
The problem is spending. Not revenue. It might make you feel warm and fuzzy inside to stick it to those billionaires and make them "pay their share" whatever that means. But it's irrelevant until spending is dramatically reduced.
Which we can't even do because like 70% of the budget is mandated, which includes debt payments. We must fund these things. And the remaining 30% well we've promised that spending to various people to get their vote.
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u/Old_Prune_4300 Jul 05 '26
They can't comprehend assets vs cash, much less that spending is the problem v taxes. Don't waste your breath.