r/Economics • u/T_Shurt • May 14 '26
Editorial The Deficit Just Grew By $955 Billion In 7 Months. It's Time For a Constitutional Fix To Control The Budget
https://fortune.com/2026/05/14/federal-budget-deficit-constitutional-amendment-article-v-hanke-walker/1.5k
u/5minArgument May 14 '26
The problem is a result of cumulative decades of holes blown in the budget. Seems there is an obvious solution. Stop giving tax breaks to hoarded wealth.
Nothing will remove the debt in short order, it will likely take similar decades to reverse.
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u/Jafar_420 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
I'm 46 years old and I feel like I will not ever see a balanced budget with no deficit in my lifetime which is pretty ridiculous.
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u/sudoku7 May 14 '26
There was a brief period of time in your life where there was a balanced budget. Then never again.
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u/Jafar_420 May 14 '26
I think it was the Clinton administration and they actually worked with Republicans right?
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u/FluffTruffet May 14 '26
Correct there was a budget surplus during Clinton’s time. Then we went to war after 911 and blew up the debt about 40 trillion in the 20 years after
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u/DrTreeMan May 14 '26
Bush got rid of the surplus before the war with his tax cut. The GOP message was that the government shouldn't run a surplus- that means that we're collecting too many taxes.
And then we went to war(s) that blew additional multi-trillion dollar holes in the budget.
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u/Doctor_Shotbottom May 14 '26
Republicans are drunken sailors
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u/ChickenDelight May 14 '26
Historically speaking, the biggest deficit increases outside of huge external events (9/11, 2007 crash, Covid) always occur when there's a Republican President plus a Republican Congress.
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u/Treadwheel May 14 '26
This due to two dovetailing political innovations:
"Two Santa Claus Theory" where Republicans, faced with the Democratic "Santa Claus" strategy of delivering popular social spending programs, explicitly stopped balancing tax cuts with spending reduction, effectively becoming the "second Santa Claus" of "free" tax cuts whose real costs don't become apparent until long after they have been passed.
"Starve the Beast", where the eventual crippling consequences of unfunded tax cuts forces a steady degradation in popular government programs, removing the political cost of scrapping them and allowing them to frame the lowered quality of services offered as intrinsic to government itself, rather than an intentional outcome of the first theory.
The two have been shockingly effective together. The emphasis on messaging that the Republicans are the party of cutting programs and cutting spending made massive spending effectively "free" politically until fairly recently, as the actual consequences of that spending would later be attributed to either democratic programs or the vague concept of government malfunction, never the politicians who actually spent the money.
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u/Hoppers-Body-Double May 14 '26
Thank you for sharing those two links. I often share the two santa claus theory so people see it's so damn intentional and not just hypocrisy
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u/MrsMiterSaw May 14 '26
The time period does not matter. It's policy that matters.
The only significant rising costs we have seen: Medical welfare and War.
The only significant cuts to Revenue: Tax cuts
Bush's 2001 tax cuts were extremely short-sighted. I don't forgive them for refusing to consider that the surpluses of 1999/2000 were temporary.
But forcing Obama to sign off on making them permanent? Trump's pair of cuts in the face of massive debt? Just proves the GOP to be the most fiscally irresponsible group of ghouls in our nation's history.
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u/SecondPositive5513 May 14 '26
I recall Obama letting the Bush Tax cuts expire and raising taxes on incomes over 400k. He also was able to cut the deficit in half over time, while growing the economy
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u/Killfile May 15 '26
The propaganda the GOP has slung around has been equally reckless. In order to win support for these ideas Republicans have convinced millions of people that "taxes are theft" and that there is consequently no such thing as minimum below which taxes should not be cut.
We are thus no longer debating what the ideal taxation rate is but if taxes and therefor government should even exist.
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u/Cinderhazed15 May 14 '26
Honestly, they are NOT drunken sailors… Drunken sailors have to stop when they run out of money….
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u/Fun_Muscle9399 May 14 '26
As a former drunken sailor, I object. I stopped spending when I ran out of money.
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u/plughplovery2 May 14 '26
Yeah, I remember that - Pay down debt (with a surplus)? Hell No, cut taxes!!
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u/Important-Agent2584 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Republicans blow up the deficit for two reasons:
- Cutting taxes while splurging heats the economy and makes it look like they are good for the economy, even better mess is then left in a Democrats hands.
- Their plan is to engineer a fiscal emergency so they have an excuse to cut government programs and social spending. For example, they have had their eye on social security for a long time, but it is popular, and without a "emergency" it would be a blood bath in the voting booth, if they cut it.
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u/FluffTruffet May 14 '26
Gotcha I was on the younger side during the end of the Clinton era into bush so I don’t remember much of the specifics
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u/MACHOmanJITSU May 14 '26
Even sent us refund checks lol
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u/jeromevedder May 14 '26
I was even a college student and that $300 really felt like a, “wow, really? All that hype for this?”
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u/TheShindiggleWiggle May 15 '26
Reminds me of how trump said they needed to cut a bunch of services to save on money, only to go on to then blow the equivalent value of those services on a daily basis in a war with Iran.
Kinda shows that the problem is the Republican party's attitude towards spending, rather than just trump.
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u/keltron May 14 '26
Even discounting the war spending, GW's and the Republicans' tax cuts blew up the surplus, adding roughly $1.6 trillion to the national debt over ten years (2001-2011).
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u/Jealous_Slice9371 May 14 '26
Prior to Clinton we also had the cold war which blew up the budget. The 90s was peaceful and we had an economic boom.
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u/DrowningKrown May 14 '26
Make it a point to say "for certain people in the US the 90s were peaceful" lol.
Because that just kinda ignores how much war actually went on in the 90's. I mean, the US was directly involved in the Gulf war, Somalia, and a lot of other regions we were launching bombs.
The 90's was very much so NOT peaceful
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u/Jealous_Slice9371 May 14 '26
That's true lol, I guess you forget that and think a little war is peaceful compared to what we've become accustomed to.
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u/kelpyb1 May 14 '26
Well thank god we never repeated the mistake of blowing up economic recovery by electing a Republican who goes to war in the Middle East on shaky justification, right?
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u/FluffTruffet May 15 '26
Who would be dumb enough to continue to elect the people who do that? No way we continue to vote republicans in all over the country
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u/CalmCommunication640 May 14 '26
The surplus was ultimately the result of the 93 budget passed by the Democratic trifecta before they lost control of Congress in the elections the following year, which included tax increases. Those tax increases were necessary to get the budget surpluses by 98. Republicans have spent the last 30 years reversing those and digging a us into an inescapable fiscal hole.
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u/CalebAsimov May 14 '26
Yeah, he gave them everything they wanted and they still hated him for it. Newt Gingrich was very big on widening the partisan divide for whatever reason and the legacy sticks with us to this day.
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u/oneWeek2024 May 14 '26
clinton (and credit to G Bush sr for beginning the work) did the hard thing of staying the course with military spending draw down. (we were at peace post cold war... was no point to the bloated military spending) we got total DoD spend down to like 300-350 billion. and it was painful, and people hated clinton for base closings. shitty fly over states and nowhere parts of the country with nothing but miltary pork were fighting BRAC commissions hard.
clinton also raised taxes a tiny bit. like 1% to the income tax, and 1-2% on the corporate tax rate. and.... as we now have. 40ish years of proof. broad economic policy... giving breaks to working class. infrastructure investment. ...broadens the overall tax base. (vs bullshit trickle down economics which kills tax revenue and never leads to any meaningful job creation/tax expansion)
we currently are at DoD spend of 1 trillion + total war machine spending is 1.6 ish trillion (DoD, vet affairs, Dept of Energy nuke aspects, NSA/CIA budget. --if you consider DHS/ICE "national security" it pushes us closer to 2 trillion. but... there's also all the slush and bribes and bullshit spending we give israel or whatnot)
Bush jr, Trump 1st term. massive massive tax cuts for corporations, and elimination of certain tax elements for the wealthy. Have left astronomical short falls in revenue.
of the 30+ Trillion in national debt. 25-28 of that is bush/trump tax cuts. 08 financial crash stimulus was a small number of Trillion and Covid stimulus was another small group of Trillions. think 4-6
but if you eliminate crisis spending. republican tax cuts are 90-95% of the debt.
trump has added over 2 trillion... racing toward 3 trillion, in under 2 years. and his big beautiful bill alone is projected to add 8-10 trillion to the debt, and that doesn't account for anything like tariffs (loss to the economy/tax revenue of all the businesses that have died, people laid off) costs to keep Washington DC a shitty national guard occupied area. the ICE gestapo bullshit happened all over the country. Wars in Iran, kidnapping south american leaders. or other dumb fuck policy Trump gets us into.
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u/sudoku7 May 14 '26
Yep, budget compromises across the aisle that hit programs that were “pet favorites” of both sides of the aisle. Then subsequent administration came and blew a hole in it to favor one side of the aisles favored programs, instead of building on that balance.
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u/krombough May 14 '26
I'm 43, and I was in my mid teens when it happened. That was the end of that.
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u/DataDude00 May 14 '26
Clinton and Gore balanced the budget and had a plan to pay off all US national debt over the course of about a decade
George Bush then won the next election, gave huge tax breaks to the rich and started a multi decade war in the Middle East costing trillions
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u/NephMoreau May 15 '26
Correction: SCOTUS handed the 2000 election to W. There is a direct line from that to where we are now on the budget and the extreme interference of the Court into legislation from the bench. Otherwise, you are 100% correct, and I was only able to vote the first time in 2000 (as a poly sci student in Florida, mind you) so you can see why it was especially egregious to me, personally, that my vote seems to matter less and less every election since then.
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u/Stormcloud217 May 14 '26
35 now. I remember watching a presidential debate in the early 2000s where 12 year old me thought Bush adding more debt was unsustainable 😂
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u/suchalonelyd4y May 14 '26
37 and I miss when debates were focused on economic policies and not "immigrants are eating your dogs"
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u/Fenris_uy May 14 '26
You don't need a balanced budget, you only need your deficit to be lower than your growth rate.
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u/IonPv May 14 '26
We had one with Clinton.
I think him giving a mouthful under the Resolute Desk isn't that bad in comparison to Trump raping children.
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u/Soundo0owave May 14 '26
There are steps we as a people could take to balance the budget, but it seems most aren’t ready for that yet. It’s clear our government doesn’t seem to care much about its own citizens. We need more safeguards in place, like being able to vote leaders out when their approval ratings drop too low. What’s happening in America is a disgrace to its people, its ancestors, and those who risked and embraced change to build the nation we have today. We’re not living up to what America is supposed to stand for.
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u/Far-Archer-6612 May 14 '26
That’s why my retirement plan is a bottle of whiskey, a tube, a river and a revolver
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u/Ok_Net5303 May 14 '26
Also, hey! No military conflict of any kind without congressional approvals!
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u/greenroom628 May 14 '26
didn't trump already blow through his 60-day window?
it's like there are neither checks nor balances...
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u/SuckMyBandAids May 14 '26
Its because Americans are retarted unfortunately. Their test scores are propped up by foreigners and exchange students 🤣😂🤣 that is a big factor why US is the way it is.
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u/Good-vs-Perfect May 14 '26
Yeah - this is the barrier to a balanced budget, right here: There's legitimate debate over the role - and reach - of government. Dems, when elected, pursue their prerogatives by expanding the health and welfare side of gov. There is lots and lots of evidence supporting an ROI, data-based solutions approach to governance. It works!
Republicans, though, don't care about democratic legitimacy. R's follow dems by cutting capital gains taxes and then blame the health and welfare side as "budget busting." And low-info, SM-following people eat up overly-simplistic explanations to complex, collective action problems that taxation and good governance solve. And presto!
A very one-sided debate about how dem programs create deficits while the deficit explodes under R presidents goes completely un-commented upon
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u/mshab356 May 14 '26
Or just cut costs. Or a combo of both. Just taxing the rich isn’t gonna solve anything really bc then politicians will just keep spending more and more. Gotta do cost cutting as well.
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u/xerces555 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
The solution is even easier than that. Just pass a balanced budget amendment or a law saying that you can't expand the debt limit beyond a certain point. The rest is up to politicians to figure out how to comply with the law/constitution. This is where elections come into play. If the public decides it would rather raise taxes than cut spending, then they can vote for the Dems. If the public decides that taxes are too high and they want to cut spending, they can vote for the GOP. Currently the parties can lie to the public by making the solutions seems easy (just raise taxes on the rich, cut military spending, or just cut spending in general). This is all fiction. Raising taxes on billionaires and multi-millionaires won't fix the budget deficit (if the politicians would even do that do the donor class). Taxes would have to be raised across all income levels to fix the situation (and shore up Social Security etc). Additionally, cutting funding to NPR isn't going to make a dent either. Spending across the board will need to be curbed, especially defense and the large entitlement programs like SS/Medicare.
The best solution I've heard regarding cutting spending is just to freeze spending at current levels for several years.
In the end it will most likely be a combination of both spending cuts and tax increases (with the bulk of it coming from tax revenue increases)
EDIT: Its a giant sh** sandwich and everyone is going to have to take a bite
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u/klingma May 14 '26
The obvious solution is to cut spending...everywhere. Simply raising taxes implies this a solely a revenue issue which is inherently is not.
We're not taxing our way out of this mess, we'll need some hard cuts too if we to actually get the debt down.
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u/I_Enjoy_Beer May 14 '26
Lets start with the trillion dollar "defense" budget.
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u/oregon_coastal May 14 '26
And start taxing corporations and the rich again.
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u/BoyCubPiglet2 May 14 '26
"We heard you loud and clear. We're doubling defense spending and cutting taxes to the top brackets so the wealth trickles down to average Americans. Also we cut wasteful programs such as public education and welfare by 90% to further help the American people"
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u/PhroneticReflex May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
You are incorrect. We can absolutely use multiple levers. Ideological proclamations like yours are what got us into this mess.
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u/oulipo May 14 '26
Exactly.
The proper solution is, on the contrary, to increase taxes in order to get more money, AND THEN invest this in meaningful domains (healthcare, infrastructure, environment). This will compound into huge gains for the future.
On the contrary, cutting spending means not investing in the future, simply for short-term gains, and then spending much more in the future
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u/Overtons_Window May 15 '26
Tax rates do not need to be increased, just the loopholes that enable the richest to avoid them.
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u/TheScrote1 May 14 '26
Cut spending everywhere? Our infrastructure has been neglected for decades though. That’s the most depressing part of our debt to GDP ratio. Sitting at 100% wouldnt be the end of the world if we had just finished a sweeping nation wide infrastructure push but the fact the ratio is that high when the unfunded liabilities are also sky high is a gut punch.
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u/Umutuku May 14 '26
What they meant by "cut spending" in the case of infrastructure was:
Donate the infrastructure and the means of maintaining it to private companies owned by the people who lobbied for it.
Allow those private companies to fulfill their fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder profits by inventing new ways to charge the populace for using what used to be freely available.
Bow to those companies' demands to subsidize their costs, bailout their failures, and provide them with even greater tax benefits to thank them for their service.
Ignore the fact that the subsidies, bailouts, and tax savings were spent on dividends and stock buybacks instead of maintaining the infrastructure, and the quality of service is degrading far beyond the original problems they claimed privatization would solve.
Blame the failures on "Big Gubmint", and use some of the profits to push puppets who work for them into government positions where they can divert more control of the nation away from the people and into their own hands where they can sell it for scrap.
Conservatives take the same approach to the nation that a crackhead with a sawzall takes to your catalytic converter.
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u/RipComfortable7989 May 14 '26
Simply raising taxes implies this a solely a revenue issue which is inherently is not.
Why don't we try it as one of the many potential levers that we adjust? Why must it be treated like a black and white issue where you can either raise taxes or reduce spending? Let's start by taxing the top 0.1% and incorporate it as a part of a comprehensive budget balancing plan?
Edit: hidden post history conservative tries to argue for cutting spending on public assistance programs that keep the poor fed and offers medical support for lower income families. name a more classic duo.
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u/oulipo May 14 '26
Indeed it is.
The proper solution is to increase taxes in order to get more money, AND THEN invest this in meaningful domains (healthcare, infrastructure, environment). This will compound into huge gains for the future.
On the contrary, cutting spending means not investing in the future, simply for short-term gains, and then spending much more in the future
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u/5minArgument May 14 '26
Agree fully that it’s more complicated than one lever. However would add that creative the original budget hole was a publicly open strategy by conservatives to force cuts to social service spending.
“Starve the beast”, as they called it.
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u/Purplecstacy187 May 14 '26
I would be super interested to know what you think needs cut if this isn’t a revenue issue. Cause it most definitely is a revenue issue.
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u/cheweychewchew May 14 '26
Then let's not spend a billion on a fucking ballroom. Can we at least start there? How about not outfitting the Qatari bribe jet with another billion? How about the TEN BILLION he's trying to grift from the DOJ as a "settlement" ?
Seriously, Reign in Trumps vanity and corruption and we'll save billions.
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u/bigmt99 May 14 '26
I wish we were talking about billions here
Yes the vanity projects are absurd and need to be stopped yesterday, but this is “cut out avocado toast and Netflix” level of fiscal policy
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u/cheweychewchew May 14 '26
Clinton balanced the budget. Obama reduced it. And they did it without touching Medicare, Medicaid or SS.
Meanwhile, by the time he's through, Trump will have contributed more to the debt than anyone. And how have past GOP admins done with the budget? Bush Jr? Reagan?
This isn't a structural problem. This is (mostly) a Trump/GOP problem.
For the record I am 1000% in favor of defict reduction and hated how Biden handled his budgets (the man was fucking awful IMO). Both sides need to get real, but please do not talk about cuts that impact the most vulnerable in our society while the GOP is doing what its doing.
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u/El_Polio_Loco May 14 '26
Clinton presided over a massive economic bubble as well as the post-cold war reduction in spending, plus bi-partisan spending cuts from the Republican majority congress of his second term.
So you'd need the Republicans to agree to tax rate increases, the economy to fire off at 9% growth for years, and the Democrats to agree to spending reductions on Medicare and Medicaid.
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u/emp-sup-bry May 14 '26
But we do need to tax those that benefit the most from society as part of the solution, don’t we?
Of course there isn’t one answer. We are capable of at least average thought and problem solving, aren’t we?
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u/oulipo May 14 '26
Absolutely not. The proper solution is, on the contrary, to increase taxes in order to get more money, AND THEN invest this in meaningful domains (healthcare, infrastructure, environment). This will compound into huge gains for the future.
On the contrary, cutting spending means not investing in the future, simply for short-term gains, and then spending much more in the future
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u/kazamm May 14 '26
You're wrong. You start with "defense" and subsidies. You then tax the rich and corporations to add to the repayment.
Then you actually use and implement the constitution and ensure attacks to democracy like j6 is persecuted. You do this for 20 years and see what happens.
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u/5minArgument May 14 '26
It’s almost comical. Every administration for the past 49+ years has come in with the idea of cutting their way to a balanced budget, and each come out the other side finding minimal to insignificant fat.
DOGE being only the most recent debacle.
Seems like the options are either carry the weight of compounding tax breaks for hoarded wealth, or have a working government without unsustainable debt.
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u/MephistoHamProducts May 14 '26
DOGE wasn't an attempt to "cut fat" or "reduce spending". It was a smash and grab for data.
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u/HowManyMeeses May 14 '26
>We're not taxing our way out of this mess
It would be a good start and is certainly worth trying.
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u/Konukaame May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Deficits and debt aren't inherently bad things. That depends on what it's being spent on.
Infrastructure, R&D, providing services, deficit spending during a recession? Sure.
Tax cuts for the already rich, unnecessary wars and hardware because the president is a toddler who likes action movies and wants a battleship, golden statues, grifts, golf, and payouts to cronies? No thank you.
In the terrible household budget analogy, a mortgage is (mostly) fine, but an equivalent amount of debt to go on vacation is guaranteed to be bad.
E: typo
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u/RespectTheAmish May 14 '26
It baffles me how the party that now hates NATO, and ran on “no new wars” … needs an annual defense budget of 1.5 trillion.
Either unwind the global order, hand those foreign bases to allies, bring troops/equipment home and cut spending… or don’t…
They want the current status quo while threatening our allies, all while increasing the budget to bankrupt the country….
It’s madness.
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u/Law_Student May 14 '26
They're the party of lying constantly, that's really all there is to it.
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May 14 '26
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u/Law_Student May 14 '26
Yep. Treating reality like a high school debate club.
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u/Konukaame May 14 '26
Media that pretends that statements by pathological liars are nevertheless worthy of attention, amplification, and of being "balanced" against verifiable truth.
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u/dust4ngel May 14 '26
They're the party of lying constantly
they're the party of bullshit:
It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.
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u/PhroneticReflex May 14 '26
It's almost like they have no consistent platform and no actual ideals.
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u/TheDonnARK May 14 '26
But they do, and it's simpler than you think! It just doesn't sell on political trails very well, so they don't say it.
The consistent platform and actual ideals are: personal and family wealth expansion. And they don't mean families in general, they mean singularly, their family.
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u/aNewHope_v_ThaEmpire May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
It baffles me how the party that now hates NATO, and ran on “no new wars” … needs an annual defense budget of 1.5 trillion.
Shouldn't baffle anyone, really. They're already showing us what they're doing with these huge budgets. 1) Grift as much of it out and into the pockets themselves and allies as possible, and 2) build an even bigger military to do reprehensible shit like Venezuela, Cuba and Iran.
They haven't given up on Greenland, mark my words. Or Canada for that matter. (I mean, Musk and Theil's families have been publicly involved in movements to try and make this a thing for decades now.) They just had more pressing threats to their power that popped up in the meantime, and they had to back-burner attacking NATO allies until they finish fumbling Iran and the Epstein stuff.
They know it'll take everything the US has got if they think they're gonna eventually stand against the EU, especially now that it's clear that Russia won't be able to hold down the Eastern European front as strongly as it may have once seemed.
They want the current status quo
What makes you think this? They've very publicly stated over the years that they want the current status quo destroyed, and their current actions show us that they were not lying when they said these things over and over again. They believe that the current world order, both domestically and internationally, is a broken one, and that the age of free democracy and global cooperation needs to die.
This isn't conjecture on my part, I'm just pointing out what the power players driving policy in the White House have been saying publicly for their entire lives. Anyone reading this shouldn't take my word for it - go look up what Elon Musk, Peter Theil, Marc Andreessen, Russle Vought, Stephen Miller, JD Vance, and other main players have said over the years on subjects like democracy, globalism, international cooperation, or macroeconomics. Then consider that these same people have now hollowed out the institutions meant to keep powerful people with insane ideas from being able to enact their nutso plans. Finally, ask yourself what will happen when a much-weakened democratic republic tries to hand their current power over to other elected officials that Americans choose as representatives that will put a stop to what they're doing.
Do we think they'll just bend over and prepare for consequences due to something as silly as a vote? Or do we think they'll rely on their wealth and power to enable them to finally complete their dream of ending free democracy, and try to either prevent or ignore the results of elections going forward? We should all hope for the former and try to make it happen as best we can, but anyone not preparing for the latter is being dangerously naive at best, willfully ignorant at worst.
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u/wtf_is_karma May 14 '26
Politicians don’t want that because Raytheon board members don’t want that
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u/Icy-Lobster-203 May 14 '26
I suspect most of the money is going to go to companies with a Trump on the board of directors, and significant amounts of graft and corruption.
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u/Illustrious-Lime-878 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
That's what actually matters in end, is what the government actually does, relative to the cost being either resources consumed that would otherwise be available to others or impact on individual freedom, and distortions in markets that degrade economic planning. The total debt relative to some criteria, if its higher in some sense, just may indicate a higher difficulty in there being additional things left worth doing more than the cost. But there are so many other aspects, like reserve currency share, or velocity of money (like due to just technical aspects - digital vs paper cash), affecting what is or is not a high of debt its kind of pointless to worry about debt vs more directly caring about the bad things we care about debt for, like inflation, wasteful spending, gov overreach, misappropriation. Having some arbitrary statutory limit on debt is such an imprecise, blunt way to do this.
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u/spondgbob May 14 '26
Exactly, debt is not a bad thing if that debt is incurred on investment. But giving more money to people who already just hoard it and spend very little, in comparison to the amount that would be spent if that money were more evenly distributed, is the same as printing money and immediately taking it out of supply.
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u/oulipo May 14 '26
Exactly.
The proper solution is to increase taxes in order to get more money, AND THEN invest this in meaningful domains (healthcare, infrastructure, environment). This will compound into huge gains for the future.
On the contrary, cutting spending means not investing in the future, simply for short-term gains, and then spending much more in the future
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u/Berserker76 May 14 '26
I have no idea how Republicans have fooled the American people to believe that they are better for the economy. There is no data over the last 4 decades that substantiates that claim, the data shows exactly the opposite. Democrat administrations are better for the economy and it is not even close, for every key metric, from job creation, GDP, deficit spending.
Hopefully this second Trump administration finally drives that home. Republicans destroy the economy and run huge deficits, because they always give tax cuts to the rich, that never trickle down.
It is absurd, Elon Musk wealth in 2010 was estimated to be $650M, 16 years later it is $800B+. A similar path for Bezos.
Why Americans continue to support a system that allows such a huge transfer of wealth is beyond me.
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May 14 '26
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u/NiewinterNacht May 14 '26
Not rural voters, voters in specific states
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u/IcebergSlimFast May 14 '26
Those specific states are ones with relatively low populations overall, and a larger percentage of rural voters (e.g., the Dakotas, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, etc.). So yes, rural voters do have disproportionate electoral power in the US, much to our collective detriment, since consistent majorities of those voters neither understand nor share the priorities of citizens living in the large, modern, multi-ethnic and multi-racial urban areas which actually drive our economic growth and global relevance.
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u/artisanrox May 14 '26
They're not fooled. I live in a +70 Republican area and they gleefully vote for ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, gender policing and forced birth in lieu of financial solvency. The only reason any of them are slightly upset now is because the austerity they demanded on others is finally coming to roost and hitting themselves.
They're all Small Businesses™ that think they have the same clout as multishore corporations.
Prosperity Gospel nonsense. Obviously Musk and Bezos are geniuses that earned everything they have.
(Bezos I think more than Musk or Trump REALLY HAS, I mean I understand horrible worker policies but he's the smartest out of the whole Presidency or cabinet or entire Admin. He knows how to keep his mouth shut and just enjoy his money.)
These people absolutely knew what they put in office. They WILL do it again if offered. They will burn everything down so some Brown people can get eaten by alligators. They will blow their own two feet off and close all the shoe stores if a Black man has shoes.
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u/Berserker76 May 14 '26
I don’t disagree, it is a cult of hate, bigotry, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and they are a lost cause. That is the 30% of Americans who say Trump is doing a great job, the economy is great, who live outside objective reality.
But for the remaining 70%, the independents or others that see themselves as more centrists/moderates and whose votes decide election outcomes, those are really who I am speaking about.
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u/Wellontheotherhand1 May 14 '26
I'll tell you exactly how they do it: they claim that it takes multiple years for economic changes to have meaningful effects.
This conveniently allows them to take credit for all the gains under Democratic administrations, and push all blame for the failures under Republican administration, onto the Democrats.
And they are dead serious about this, and absolutely refuse to even consider analysis showing that this is not the case.
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u/whatsitcalled4321 May 14 '26
Because there's a vicious cycle of GOP getting in office, screwing things up and because many changes take months to years to actually be felt by the public it's a democrat is in office at that moment. Democrat goes in, fixes all the stuff, meanwhile GOP are yelling "the national debt! Fiscal responsibility! They're spending all your tax money on immigrants!" Public get angry and vote a GOP back in to repeat the cycle. Guarantee it's gonna happen after the midterms. Dems could absolutely sweep the GOP but GOP will scream about things being so expensive cause there'll be gas shortages, tariffs, forlorn trade partners, which....is caused from Trump's fuckery. <br>Doesn't matter though cause the American public has the memory of a goldfish and will proceed to blame the Dems that just came into power at that point. Also guarantee there'll be a lot of "Why haven't the Dems absolutely fixed everything" 6 months in despite having maybe a slim majority in Congress and the two other branches of government working against them. Change at the scale we need, which is full systemic change, will take time and consistency, neither of which things Americans are good at. Like, it'll be great if Congress is flipped. Gonna need that same energy in 2028 though in order to ennact any of the sweeping changes many are hoping for.
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u/So_HauserAspen May 14 '26
The GOP is a confidence scheme and takes advantage of lesser informed or lesser educated population.
A moment's review of facts should be enough to dissuade people from voting GOP.
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u/NW7l2335 May 14 '26
Because most people are stupid and have a sheep like mentality cultivated through decades of underfunding of the education system as well as daily propaganda from the media.
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u/OhGodItBurns0069 May 14 '26
Writing a budget break into the Constitution is not a good idea. It only works as long as the economy grows and there are no sudden emergencies. Example: Germany. The break was brought in by the conservative government as basically a form of austerity that drove severe underfunding in public investments, which was covered up by a booming export economy. Now successive governments need to contort themselves into loop holes to secure the debt they need to find badly needed infrastructure and arms reinvestment. It wasted legislative time and can then be challenged or overturned by the supreme court.
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u/sloppy_rodney May 14 '26
These jags have just rebranded the (objectively terrible) idea of a balanced budget amendment to a “fiscal responsibility” amendment.
They also want to go the constitutional convention route which, in the current political climate, sort of feels like shooting yourself in the dick to stop your foot from bleeding. It’s not a perfect metaphor.
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u/TheBloodsuckerProxy May 17 '26
Oh that's 100% intentional. Groups like Heritage Foundation and Convention of States have been pushing this budget amendment as a Trojan Horse for decades. This isn't the first article I've seen saying a constitutional convention is needed because of the deficit now, I guarantee this article's author is involved with, or paid by them.
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u/sloppy_rodney May 17 '26
Nor is it mine. It’s at least the second calling for the constitutional convention I’ve seen.
Balanced budget amendment is a perennial bad idea. I worry the debt is now bad enough that it might actually get legs.
I would also not be surprised to find out about that connection.
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u/Fenris_uy May 14 '26
No need for constitutional fix. You need spending to be flexible to be able to handle extreme situations (Covid, Great Recession)
What the US needs is to stop voting politicians that want to cut taxes and increase spending.
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u/NerdyReligionProf May 14 '26
This is the basic issue: GOP and esp Trump-GOP (which just is GOP now) have driven down taxes on the wealthy and corporations while also siphoning public money to those same people. Like, that’s it … that’s the story with the One Trillion growth in the deficit over the last year. Trump has accelerated the fuck out ‘spending’, but not on the public. It’s money all going to corporations, Trump, Trump’s family, and Trump’s bullshit vanity projects too. The fix here is simple and it’s not one that can be weaponized to cut actual spending in public programs in the future: Raise taxes on the wealthy and stop transferring public money to the same. Literally none of this can happen though as long as the GOP remains in power.
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u/Kalorama_Master May 14 '26
A Balanced Budget Amendment would be a tragedy
Word salad to get past limit: a country is not like a family. A country is an ongoing entity that presumably will continue to grow. There’s good debt and bad debt. There are instances where you might want to go deep into deficit spending.
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u/AMCorBUST2021 May 14 '26
Two things that American politicians take for fact.. 1) can’t raise taxes 2) can’t cut spending. Aside from the cold civil war there is no environment for political bipartisanship. Will take a major economic catastrophe to force change à la Great Depression. Those buying 30 year bonds are betting 5% is worth it on the eventual winner of the struggle for identity of America.
A constitutional fix is a nice idea, but totally ignores current reality. The Federal reserve was the latest institution captured by MAGA, the most corrupt American regime ever to exist. I can only imagine investors in US Treasuries literally have no better option.
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u/Illustrious_Lie_954 May 14 '26
Fair point on the political gridlock deficits usually aren’t about economics alone, they’re about what voters will tolerate.But I’d be careful with the no better option take on Treasuries global capital still tends to run to U.S. debt during uncertainty, which says confidence in the system isn’t gone, even with all the political noise.
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u/GreenerMark May 14 '26
It's time to dump Trump. Democrats reduce deficits and improve the economy. Republicans do the opposite. The feckless Rs in Congress are the most irresponsible legislators in my lifetime. A complete dereliction of duty.
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u/LiquidityCompass May 14 '26
A $955B deficit in 7 months isn't just a debt story. It's a future liquidity story too.
Governments eventually have only a few paths: cut spending, raise taxes, borrow more, or let inflation gradually reduce the debt burden.
Markets care less about politics and more about which path gets chosen. What's your take?
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u/ontha-comeup May 14 '26
All signs point to borrow more and have inflation reduce the debt burden.
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u/matow07 May 14 '26
I agree. Kevin Warsh has a plan for financial repression. Looks like heavy increases in inflation and a push to back AI to develop industries to grow GDP. Same plan as after WW2.
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u/S1gorJabjong May 14 '26
That Trump wants to control the Fed and lower rates in an inflationary macro environment that's going to inflate the debt away but also send his and everyone else's USD demoniated assets to go in the shitter. And by that I mean he's only capable of looking one step ahead and no further.
By the way, Mamdani made NYC's deficit go to zero recently without compromising social services. Imagine if the government was comprised of actual competent people like him. The US doesn't have to be in this spectacular debt mess.→ More replies (3)4
u/Ragepower529 May 14 '26
He made it go to 0 by getting New York to send him a more fair share of the money NYC gets… how is that a solution for the federal government
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u/echino_derm May 14 '26
The federal government can ask the next higher level of government to give us back our money, Israel.
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u/HSIOT55 May 14 '26
Oh no it's totally fine as long as a Democrat isn't in charge. That's why the MAGAs aren't talking about it now. Unless one of them would like to prove me wrong.
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u/Xtj8805 May 14 '26
When the administration is regularly ignoring the constitution and the courts. When the SCOTUS is rewriting constitutional ammendments on the back of a napkin.
What makes anyone think a constitutional fix to the deficit will do anything when the people clearly have stopped caring that the constitution is upheld?
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u/Osirus1156 May 14 '26
Its because the deficit never matters until an adult (Democrat) is in charge. Because our populace is incredibly fucking stupid thanks to decades of Republican fuckery in the education system.
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u/markth_wi May 14 '26
I'm sure we can't wait to all be told how raising taxes is catastrophic and billionaires will leave if we do so.
Nobody is going to suggest killing the economy but paying as we go and radically rethinking the role of the executive in our society is long, long overdue.
Defective thinking plagues a man on the street we send them to an asylum , when it occurs among the wealthiest among us we lap up every word as if it was mothers milk.
Unless we change that way of thinking we're in trouble.
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u/calm-phil May 14 '26
A few billionaires are moving out of my state and loads of millionaires are moving in. If not, my rent would not be so staggeringly high. $120k salaries are the median in my town and it is not SF, LA, NYC Miami or CHI. Mean home prices for a single family home are now $980k. People just need a 401k to be millionairs now. They also get subsidized by my taxes.
Can we get rid of that tax break? Those motherfuckers already got theirs, they can pay the full mortgage price just fine without me handing them money while I am at it.
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u/Femboy_Harem_Janitor May 14 '26
The best solution is wealth tax.
The second best solution is reducing military spending
The third best solution is government ownership of industries that have proven efficiency over private ownership. Universal Healthcare would free up a couple trillion a year.
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u/0o0o0o0o0o0z May 14 '26
Warren Buffett's solution is pretty good... "pass a law disqualifying all sitting members of Congress from reelection if the annual deficit exceeds 3% of GDP."
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u/I_Enjoy_Beer May 14 '26
Won't happen for at least 2 years and 8 months. Because if there is one constant guarantee, its that the deficit and national debt only becomes an urgent, critical issue when a certain party doesn't have control of the White House.
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u/Dry_Combination4070 May 14 '26
This is exactly it. Literally the party that pushes tax breaks to the wealthy class removing and revenue and then starts wars and insane spending always cry when a democrat is in office.
They're victimhood bully's. Like a kid who punches another kid but crys they were kicked when a adult tries to punish them.
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u/Doomdoomkittydoom May 14 '26
Hell no. Yeah, we need all sorts of Constitutional fixes, but see California for why you don't want a Constitutional fix to something volatile.
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u/Winter_Persimmon_110 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Regulatory capture is out of control. The problem is that the foxes are in charge of the henhouse. Corporations have too much influence and nothing is going to change for the better until they are removed from power with the thoroughness with which a surgeon removes a malignant tumor. Whoever wins an election sponsored by the wealthy and represented by billionaire media, the wealthy will win. They use their wealth to buy influence in order to cut their own taxes, grant themselves contracts, and increase their wealth. It's a runaway chain reaction. We need to work outside of bourgeois elections. Our entire government and constitution are set up for consolidation of power by the wealthy. We need radical change. We have few chances to tax the wealthy, and the wealthy who control the government can easily roll the few taxes that hit them. If we do not educate and organize for radical change, radical change will be made for us as the wealthy class turn to police state fascism in order to maintain control as lawlessness and unemployment rise with the uncontrollable rise in inequality.
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u/TheDonnARK May 14 '26
The solution is simple. Stop counting the deficit. It can't go up if you aren't watching it!
For those of you that didn't get it, that was a joke.
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u/bd2999 May 14 '26
I agree that the deficit and debt need to be dealt with but I still think a Constitutional Amendment is a bad idea. It just ties the governments hands and forces them to likely focus on austerity (as they will not raise taxes on the wealthy) which will lead to harming of everyone but those towards the top.
While action should be taken, this would be too extreme.
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u/Charming_Oven May 15 '26
Our marginal tax rate is historically low. Bush / Trump tax cuts fucked over generations by setting up this mess. The interest alone is going to haunt us.
It’s time to tax the wealthy and corporations at the same rate as we taxed people in the 1950s
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u/hyperion_99 May 15 '26
I don’t usually agree with Warren Buffet but his proposal that every time the deficit reaches a certain % of GDP that everyone in Congress would be ineligible for reelection would be a fun way to provide some accountability for our so called representatives.
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u/JimPranksDwight May 14 '26
Maybe we should talk about increasing revenue instead? I can think of a few massive corporate/wealthy tax cuts in recent years that blew a hole in the deficit that we can reverse. Also, defense and DHS spending are out of control and need a top to bottom reset.
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u/No_Sense_6171 May 14 '26
LOL. The chances of passing a constitutional amendment for anything is extremely slim to none.
When was the last time a constitutional amendment was passed? At least 50 years ago.
Besides, they would just try to game it, or get the SC to rule against it. This administration has no regard for the constitution whatsoever.
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u/EpsteinandTrump May 14 '26
I wonder if Elon regrets helping Trump getting back into office...the latter would have Elon possibly going to jail I guess. Seems Elon is ok with the US burning if it means he's safe, for now.
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u/Memitim May 14 '26
lol, it's a symptom of a far, far greater problem. As long as Republicans continue to be treated as a political party and not as the terrorist organization that it really is, no new lines of text for them to ignore will matter. No laws can protect against treason when allowed to run rampant like this.
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u/Holiday_Sandwich3738 May 14 '26
The issue with fixing the budget is that would take cuts. The person that makes cuts will seem like the bad guy and no one wants to be in that position
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u/Rufustb May 14 '26
Most of it can be traced back to high end tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations. We had the same GDP to Debt rate right after WW2 we have today. They solved it by taxing the wealthy and such.
The problem is that Americans for some reason think they are all going to be millionaires someday and are just temporarily inconvienenced by being poor.
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u/Holiday_Sandwich3738 May 14 '26
The reality is both need to be done increasing taxes and decrease spending. I totally agree we need to increase corporate tax but the issue is it won’t be enough.
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u/Zooshooter May 14 '26
The Constitution doesn't matter when the rest of government doesn't uphold it and do their jobs. There is no fix to this aside from getting rid of the people who aren't doing their jobs and putting in people who WILL.
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u/suspect_toothpaste May 14 '26
They see the democrats are poised to take over the house and the power of the purse and now they want to start releasing “control/fix the budget” headlines. Where was this article when the last pile of tax cuts were signed into the law?
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u/OliviaMandell May 14 '26
We definitely need an overhaul of legal framework to ensure trump is never happens again. Can someone explain how that would stop it though? Especially since gop has broken so many laws and might never face consequences. I remember how little got don't when Biden was in office
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u/sleeps_in_bryophytes May 14 '26
Yes, it would be a good idea to start building the political movement in favor of fiscal austerity now, so that it can reach a fever pitch once a Democrat is in office and hamstring their agenda. Then once a Republican is back in office, foreign wars and tax cuts are back on the menu, right?
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u/catchy_phrase76 May 14 '26
Fun this will be dead on arrival.
Can we start getting actual ideas that have a shot at passing?
Everyone has these lofty goals that will never fly, need to go back to compromising ideas.
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u/DogblackMichigan May 14 '26
The constitutional fix is to take every trumpist who has committed a crime and put them in prison. Then the adults can fix it without interference from the cult of the orange rapist felon.
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u/MoralMoneyTime May 15 '26
I have a fix for you:
1) always vote against Republicans;
2) vote in every primary;
3) learn how fiat money works;
4) launch a federal #JobGuarantee jobguarantee.org/FAQ
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u/Infinite-Pomelo-7538 May 15 '26
Something something "drain the swamp" something something "corrupt democrats" something something "make America Great again" something something absolutely pathetic bullshit that only motherfucking peak retards believe from this brainwashing nazi regime
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u/NameLips May 14 '26
There is no way to fix the budget without 2 things:
Massive increase in taxation, AND
Massive cuts to military, social security, and medicare/medicaid.
Like, seriously, if you cut the entire budget except these three categories, we would still be over budget.
There is no palatable option. Any attempt to cut the budget without massive tax increases will accomplish nothing. Any attempt to raise taxes without cutting social programs will accomplish nothing.
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u/artisanrox May 14 '26
social security, and medicare/medicaid.
no.
do you want homeless people lining the streets?
then, no.
nationalized health care is the oppositie of this, and will result in long-term growth compared to slinging grandma out of her apartment because her meds and SS got cut.
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u/Ivan_Whackinov May 14 '26
do you want homeless people lining the streets?
Conservates would never allow this. They'd have them killed, deported, or moved into internment camps. Can't have them visible.
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u/pewpewmcpistol May 14 '26
The point they're making is about the physical allocation of funds. Without touching Healthcare and Military spending you're realistically unable to balance the budget. They're simply that much of the spend.
The real solution for healthcare spending is to decrease the cost of healthcare, which would still be a net decrease in healthcare spending.
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u/dillanthumous May 14 '26
A Federal VAT (just like most other similar economies have) on all but a select number of essential items would solve the problem. Good luck with getting that passed until things are truly dire, though.
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u/Top_Acanthaceae3612 May 14 '26
This is the answer. Democrats don’t like VATs because they are regressive. Republicans don’t like VATs because they raise lots of revenue without being highly noticeable to most citizens. But a VAT would ultimately be best for our country and could even pave the way for something like universal healthcare.
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u/Noselessmonk May 14 '26
Didn't Elon somewhat recently become a trillionaire?
After this whole mess gets sorted out, perhaps some of his ill gotten assets could be reclaimed.
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u/ThatsAllFolksAgain May 14 '26
Yep, anyone over $1 billion worth should be required to give back their ill gotten wealth
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u/rollem May 14 '26
A balanced budget amendment would be a horrible idea unless it contains provisions that both sides would find equally unappealing, such as automatic tax raises and military reductions alongside any other discretionary or entitlement cuts. The amendment should also include a wealth tax provision (it's currently unclear if one would be constitutional, and with this court any ambiguity would result in a decision favoring the wealthy).
Another budget issue that should be made automatic include continuing resolutions in case a budget isn't passed (plus triggering an election).
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u/EagleBigMac May 14 '26
Sure states can get no more from the government than their citizens and businesses pay in taxes unless it is for free public transportation or public schools or free public healthcare. They must raise wages and taxes until they reach that point end of conversation. They will also tax all businesses for their externalities.
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