The economy is healthy enough that we should be, in a measured pace, cutting spending, raising taxes, and raising interest rates. Another recession is coming at some point: maybe not this year or within the next few years, but one will come. That's when we should be cutting taxes.

Am I the only person who is worried by the long-term financial outlook of the country? Right now marks about the end of easier options and the start of difficult options. Baby boomers are retiring at a pretty feverish pace, and the population to replace them just isn't there.

We're what, 15 years away from social security bankruptcy? If I was facing bankruptcy, I wouldn't be cutting revenue.

We're on the precipice of a lot of serious problems that would make the social and economic problems we face today seem like child's play.

This post was edited by Interesting on Sep 29 2017 12:40pm

It doesn't support the "supply side of the economy", it just supports the people who pull the strings best.

Nothing new, nothing unexpected, nothing to be happy or sad about.

No it's really not. If you only understood what your proposals mean you'd understand it's a bad idea. If we raise taxes, cut gov't spending and raise the interest rates we 'd be looking at deflation and a shrinking economy. I listen to a lot of finance podcasts and there is a lot of worry because our inflation is still extremely low (not really a good thing, 2% is the magic number we want & we're at around 1.4% i believe?) This basically means our economy is very slow to grow and raising the rates signals that "we're doing good" when in reality the inflation which needs to be around ~2 % is not there.

The last thing the Fed wants to do is create a environment in which it deflates the economy.

I don't really know what the solution is without some serious cuts to entitlements & military. Only way i see to start at least reigning in the deficits. Also, even though our debt is astronomical only around 1/4 is owned to foreigners. There isn't going to be some sort of scenario where Japan or China demands their money & as a result collapsing the world economy.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Sep 29 2017 04:19pm

wtf is this abomination of a statement? throwing in a random economic term / theory in a context that doesn't even begin to make sense, and then project your obvious (and almost hilarious) cluelessness on someone else?

the curve doesn't DO anything when it comes to lowering the deficit. it's an economic hypothesis trying to describe the ratio between tax rate and revenue. the ideal rate is unknown, highly controversial (like most economic models), and obviously depends on the specifics of the economy - but despite the model's popularity amongst trickle-down proponents, the majority of economists reject the idea that current tax rates are on the "too high" side of maximising revenue. maybe ask kansas for a very recent example...

This post was edited by fender on Sep 29 2017 04:56pm

Taxcuts have increased revenue every time in history. Who are you pretending to convince?

I don't have a crystal ball, but I can look at history. Tax cuts aren't going to do that much, and they certainly won't herald the "6%" bullshit I've seen here and there the last few days. Bruce Bartlett has a very good WaPo opinion piece about this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/28/i-helped-create-the-gop-tax-myth-trump-is-wrong-tax-cuts-dont-equal-growth/?utm_term=.92859cfb3299

Look - the keyword of my post was measured. Obviously the government can strangle the economy if all three of those happen at once and I'm not sure anyone anywhere would ask for that. Two .25% rate hikes a year, $200 billion cut a year including $100b in entitlement reform, 1% increase to certain tax brackets a year. If that sounds irresponsible or obtrusive, I ask what suggestion you have besides the hocus pocus of "pays for itself".

This post was edited by Interesting on Sep 29 2017 07:56pm

I don't see how the elimination of the state and local tax is good in your opinion but eliminating the homeowner interest deduction is bad? You have to itemize to take them, and mortgage insurance benefits the wealthy more than the average homeowner. It also penalizes living within your means because the interest paid drops with a larger down payment and/or a shorter term loan.

Edit: If we actually cared about benefiting the middle class the standard deduction should be set to the mediain income for the state you're filing in at the national level.

This post was edited by nobrow on Sep 29 2017 09:36pm

We don't have the technology yet to do that. One size fits all will have to do.