...it's so difficult to curtail Federal Government spending. It's truly hard. We keep saying that the government spends too much, but really, I'm not seeing it. All such spending is righteous and something we could be expected to provide as the government of a financially healthy supposed "Super Power."
But we're not financially healthy with a $2T deficit. It is an existential threat to the nation. We NEED to fix it.
I don't agree that the government is spending too much. I think the government is collecting too little in revenue. Should we raise tax rates? No, that is likely to reduce revenue because raising tax rates harms the economy, which functions less well and causes Americans to make less money, and get laid off from work more often.
I believe what we should do is what the President is doing, only moreso. He's using tariffs to allow US companies to expand and capture more of their markets. This should raise revenue.
But the nuclear weapon in this would be to abolish the income taxes completely. That can be done by passing a proposal in the house of representatives, HR-25, the FairTax act. It totally abolishes personal, payroll, corporate, capital gains, gift, self-employment, and estate taxes, which are all collected under the 16th amendment authorizing an income tax. The 16th amendment should also be repealed, which the FairTax proposes as a condition of it's continued existence.
Under the FairTax, the USA would become the world's newest and bestest tax haven, a manufacturing-tax-free country that business executives around the world would injure themselves in the stampede to build factories in the USA. Employment would be massive, with those that are sitting home now, watching the kids and conserving their assets, instead coming off their couch in front of the TV, being able to afford child care while they travel not-so-far to the new factory in town, and help the business executive that built it make tax-free widgets to sell world-wide. They would be able to afford the 2nd car to get the otherwise couch-sitter to work, buy the gas to get there, and have far more money to spend which would be taxed by the FairTax when they spend it.
And I think the federal government would not be casting about for 2 billion dollar programs benefitting students and libraries to cut. We could then afford that.