![]() But we're also going to weaken us for many more vulnerabilities.īut the problem is, we don't have politicians who want to talk about those things. And if we continue to borrow where we are, we are going to chip away at the standard of living in this country. The fiscal health of the country is the very foundation of our economic strength. And it's very hard to make that connection, but that connection could not be stronger. All of those things are jeopardized by high levels of debt.īut it doesn't seem front and center to most families who are thinking about cost of health care, retirement, education. Both in terms of national security and to maintain our position as an economic superpower having the currency that is the safe haven. The problem is that all this borrowing weakens the economy, leaves us vulnerable to new emergencies, leave us vulnerable on a geopolitical stage, as we're competing with other nations around the world. And yet we are borrowing trillions then, and we appear poised to borrow trillions now. That's not where we are now, that's not where we were in the years before COVID hit. You want to be prepared for moments like that so you can borrow when you need to, when there's an emergency, and when the economy needs borrowing to help prop it up. That's exactly where we should have been. We borrowed trillions and trillions of dollars. Now, we just went through the COVID emergency. And there are many reasons that we should all be concerned about this. Because if you look at every year, the country borrows more money than is wise, given that we already have near-record levels of debt. We're not doing a very good job of convincing people of that. How do you get those people to understand that that could be a real problem? How do you convince people who say, no big whoop? I mean, right now, we're paying $330 billion. That's just the interest payment on the national debt. But I've got to ask you, how do you convince people? When I throw out that number, $910 billion by 2031, according to the committee. Those of us who are over the age of 50, we've had this discussion for the last four decades. And that's when you see the tough choices aren't nearly as popular on how to pay for things as they are what things to spend money on. So bottom line is, once you get to how you actually pay for things, that's when the real work of budgeting begins. Many of these things are less than what the White House was proposing.Īnd overall, while the White House was talking about net savings from taxes of about $2 and 1/2 trillion to help offset these costs, Ways and Means is talking about something closer to $900 billion, making the big fiscal gap even larger. ![]() So all those things, the taxes on individuals, on corporations, the tax gap, which is a really sensible way to think about closing some of the difference between what's owed and what's actually paid. And very importantly, a lot less on the actual revenue raisers. And now that we're starting to see some of the details on the pay-fors, what's coming out of the committee is a lot more in tax breaks. The good news being that the White House had put out the marker, these are going to be fully paid for.īut once you get into the details, it's a lot easier to talk about popular spending items that people really like than it is for the pay-fors. We're now talking about some very large policy initiatives. ![]() ![]() We're on track to borrow $12, $13 trillion over the next 10 years, if we don't do anything that makes that fiscal situation worse. So we already know that the fiscal situation is unsustainable. MAYA MACGUINEAS: So overall, what we're seeing coming out of the committee so far does not appear to be anything close to good for the bottom line of the country. ![]()
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