So just so I can be clear, we should do everything that the post-WWII leaders did except raise the effective tax rate for high earners to 30% or more and except increasing non-defense spending while cutting defense spending by something like 75%.
That’s your message?
Very low?
Kinda like that slight tax increase we were talking about?
Both Truman and Eisenhower cut spending and taxes. True, most it was defense spending because back then that was by far the largest budget item. Not the case anymore. Now defense spending is only 18-20% of the federal budget.
Defense spending as a percent of GDP is near historic low.
I say this only slightly tongue in cheek, but let’s keep everything as is for the 47% who pay no income tax, but structure/eliminate the withholding so that on April 15, everyone sends a check to the feds. If you make $25k per year and qualify for the EITC so that your income is really $33k, then pay that $33k over weekly, bi-weekly (however you are paid) installments, but at the end of the year, the earner has to write a check for the 10% or whatever rate that is due.
Yes, I realize it’s absurd because people would be defaulting on their tax bills in the millions, and enforcement would be a nightmare, but then everyone in the country would start bitching about government spending and demanding reform.
For too many people, it’s not that taxes are due, it’s that the the refund check is coming! That is dishonest and hides the actual cost of government spending.
Ah, so you do support Keynes. This government spending created jobs, and was such a stimulus package that it ended the Great Depression for good. Even better, it involved us digging holes and breaking windows (with bombs) though we didn’t pay for anyone to fix them until after the war. If you want to double the size of the army, buy lots of planes and tanks, and bomb the crap out of the Duchess of Grand Fenwick our recession would be over!
And the reason our defense spending is low is the same reason it went down in 1945-48 - we no longer have large, powerful enemies to defend ourselves from.
We would never have been able to kill Osama Bin Laden without 10 aircraft carrier groups and F-35’s.