Trump and Harris Ignore a Great Danger Facing America

[Brian4Liberty]

Trump and Harris Ignore a Great Danger Facing America
by Ron Paul | Sep 2, 2024

The Penn Wharton Budget Model, a think tank headquartered at the University of Pennsylvania, recently released a study claiming former President Donald Trump’s economic plans would add about four trillion dollars to the national deficit over ten years while Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic plans would add about two trillion dollars.

Vice President Harris would increase the deficit largely through expanding refundable tax credits such as the child tax credit. Low-income Americans can qualify for refundable tax credits even if they have less federal tax liability. So this proposal includes a welfare program disguised as a tax credit. Vice President Harris also proposes spending 40 billion dollars on an “innovation fund” to increase the supply of “affordable” housing. Another of the vice president’s proposals is providing first-time homebuyers with up to 25,000 dollars in downpayment assistance.

Harris’s proposals could contribute to a new housing bubble. This bubble would inevitably burst, leading to an economic crisis likely worse than the “Great Recession” that followed the bursting of the last housing bubble. One reason it could be worse is that it may be accompanied by the bursting of several other bubbles and the rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status.

According to the study, President Trump will increase the deficit by cutting taxes without also cutting spending. President Trump has pledged to renew the 2017 tax cuts and also promised to stop taxing Social Security benefits. Trump’s tax cuts would help spur economic growth, job creation, and higher tax revenue. The study indicates that the pro-growth effects of Trump’s tax cuts are the reason it projects Trump’s tax policy will “only” increase the federal deficit by 4.1 trillion dollars over ten years as opposed to 5.8 trillion dollars.

It is common to describe tax cuts as “costing” the government. Saying tax cuts cost the government assumes that the government has a moral claim over an individual’s earnings, so anytime those running the government allow individuals to keep more of their money the rulers are being generous. The truth is that income belongs to the people who earn it and that saying tax cuts cost the government is like saying burglar alarms cost thieves. Therefore, any legislation that cuts taxes is a victory for liberty.

We should never allow concerns about government debt to prevent us from supporting tax cuts. Instead, we must focus on the real cause of the debt crisis — ever-increasing spending in a futile effort to run the world, run the economy, and run our lives. Increasing federal deficits will result in tax increases, either directly via Congress and the IRS or indirectly via the Federal Reserve’s inflation tax that results from the Fed’s monetization of federal debt.

Unless the federal government starts cutting spending and paying down the debt, America will experience an unprecedented economic crisis. Yet, neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris is even talking about this issue, much less proposing a serious plan to roll back the welfare-warfare state, reduce spending, and start to reduce the debt. Instead, both candidates are likely to increase spending. This is one reason it is difficult to take seriously the claim that this is the most important election in history.
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https://ronpaulinstitute.org/trump-and-harris-ignore-a-great-danger-facing-america/

 

[acptulsa]

Neither one cares.

1. Break us...

2. Introduce the new cbdc/social credit starvation cards

 

[osan]

Neither one cares.

1. Break us...

2. Introduce the new cbdc/social credit starvation cards

The truth is a bit complicated... mainly because economic reality tends to be.

One factor that I never see addressed is that of the psychology of "profit". Note in the graph how productivity has climbed. This is almost entirely due to technology. The digital revolution has taken us far in those terms. CNC tech, for instance, has made affordable to vast millions things that would otherwise have been impossible for anyone to afford, some of it even beyond the reach of the wealthiest people. Think "cell phone" and "personal computer" for example. At CCNY we had a 4381 mainframe and at CUNY's graduate center we had a 3090E, IBM's flagship at the time. Those were many millions of dollars worth of hardware. Today, the smart watch you bought for $200 has more computing power that both of those mainframes put together.

The cost of production of countless items has gone through the floor, thanks to digital technologies. In spite of a workforce that is ever flagging on the average, productivity rises all the time, and with better QC than ever before, at least in most products. Lesser costs + higher productivity + higher quality = growing margins of gross profit.

And so to my point: as those margins grow, yet the real income rates stagnate at best, but in most cases actually shrink, one must turn to the business owner and ask why this is the case. They will invariably refer to lower costs, etc., but if you ask them why they have not increased employee incomes to match real rates of earnings in the face of the unavoidable inflationary nature of FRNs, they either get that deer-in-the-headlights look as they reach for a pistol, make believe they didn't hear you, or rarely will make valid reference to the wild costs that "government" regulation imposes upon them, pointing out that every dollar given in salary costs them $3 due to regulations.

But there is also the fact that humans. As such, we like to gather more and are not fond of giving away... at least in the ways relevant here. Why pay them more if they will stay for less? And why stay if you cannot keep up? Because humans. As in Law, case studies are a huge part of the work of getting one's MBA, and we did hundreds of them. One macro-economic reality is that producers will ask $x/unit in Market A and $y/same-unit in Market B. Why? Because it is what they can get away with. You will pay, say, $1000/month for a life-saving drug in America, but in India it will be $50/month... and the disparities are that stark in some cases. One goes for maximum profit at all times, and they do so with very few exceptions. That is part of what happens in free markets. But what of the employees falling behind in real terms? That is a decision that owners make and they do so consciously. You cannot fix human beings because human beings. The solution, according to the likes of the wannabe Prostitute In Chief, is to impose controls from above. The real solution is to leave nature to its devices and keep things FREE. Those who decide they've had enough will either find better jobs or start their own businesses. The rest? Tough noogies. If you're content to remain in spite of your complaints, you deserve nothing better.

Ugh... I think there was a point in there somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can find it now.

Getting old sucks.

 

[Madison320]

Trump and Harris Ignore a Great Danger Facing America
by Ron Paul | Sep 2, 2024

My "theory" is that the interest payments on the debt is the mathematical brick wall. Interest payments over the last 12 months is over 900 billion and consumes over 18% of our tax revenue (according to the debt clock). It just flew past military spending. We're getting close to a debt death spiral where we have to print to pay the interest, which drives up rates, which drives up the interest payments, which causes us to have to print even more leading to hyperinflation. I'm guessing about 40% is the point of no return but I have no historical data to back that up.

 

[Anti Globalist]

The nominees for each respective party are always going to ignore the great dangers.

 

[acptulsa]

The nominees for each respective party are always going to ignore the great dangers.

Especially when they both exacerbated the problem and brought the issue to a head.

On purpose. Both of them.

 

[Occam's Banana]

https://x.com/dbenner83/status/1834080344502354312

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1834157436737126488

https://x.com/RonPaul/status/1834252925956194533