In reply to: We need to talk serious cost cuts first. posted by G.K.Chesterton
record lows again, down to around 2.8%, which is roughly the same as the post Cold War trough (2.7%) right before 9/11.
And yet it's a larger outlay than Medicare.
If you think we need to cut big government there's not much to cut besides social insurance and defense.
Maybe once Trump is off the scene the GOP reverts to a policy based party and we can debate how to right size the budget? For now the answer seems to be wait until a debt crisis and hope the other party is in charge so we can blame them.
Common Defense is the only thing of those that ONLY the Federal Government can do (leaving out the National Guard as a viable form of power projection). The fact that we've built a system where the common welfare stuff is also inextricably tied to the Federal level, and that they are becoming competing priorities, is unfortunate.
Kicking everything down to the lower levels isn't the right answer, as there are disparities by region, but so much can be done more locally. (E.g. Habitat for Humanity works well, but it isn't something that can be scaled nationally and still works. Still, a more efficient division of responsibility and resources would go a long way). Social support is also something that can benefit from volunteer and charity support, which can't be said for infrastructure or national defense...
On that last, maybe we could begin issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal again. Bring the profit and adventure motive back into play for dealing with the Russkies and Huthis.... there have been semi-serious suggestions that Ukraine could do it to throw another wrench at the Russian merchant fleet. And the government does get a cut of the prize bounty from any privateer.
bit of a hazard as well. For example, let's say the loonies shouting around Portland get their way and we become the first state to institute UBI (not mocking UBI, mind you, just using it as a prop).
In a 50 state model, what's to prevent everyone from moving here and bankrupting the government, absent some other control? We don't have borders (for good reason...uh...yet), so you'd have to have some sort of test lest everyone pile in.
We're currently experiencing this with homelessness. People see us as "soft" and we get the good and the bad, the tired and poor, the drug addicts and the antisocials.
Conversely if a state has stricter taxation and one does not, you get things like Bezos declaring his existence in florida to avoid Washington's taxation ideas.
I wish I had a better idea than "make it a federal issue!" because as you said, not everyone is best served that way. However, leaving it to the states leads to odd disparities when mobility is a factor.
Interest rates on US government debt rises so high, that the US government has a difficult time raising new debt and/or cannot sustain it.
The WSJ just ran an article showing how US govt debt service will shortly approach $1T per year. However, there’s no consensus on when those payments and/or interest rates have an appreciable effect on US debt purchases (maybe once we default?).
China used to think they would supplant the USA in this regard, but they have their own structural issues that we’ve discussed before back here.