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The Budget Deficit Is Nearly $2 Trillion and Rising Fast

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73 comments on The Budget Deficit Is Nearly $2 Trillion and Rising Fast

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The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes the Deficit Nearly $2 Trillion Over Past Year

The rolling deficit has been growing since November of last year, driven by rising nominal spending and declining revenue. April tax collections were particularly weak, resulting in a one-month surplus of only $173 billion this year (or $99 billion adjusted for the effects of timing shifts), compared to $308 billion ($373 billion adjusted for timing shifts) in April of 2022. When comparing both surpluses for timing shifts, this year’s April surplus is just one-quarter of the April 2022 surplus. 

As a share of the economy, deficits have totaled roughly 7.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the past year – twice the rolling deficit from June of 2022 and more than 50 percent higher than just before the pandemic.

High and rising deficits put more pressure on inflation, make the Federal Reserve’s inflation-fighting efforts more challenging and costly, slow economic growth, make it harder to respond to new emergencies, create geopolitical risks, and put the national debt on an unsustainable long-term path. Policymakers should enact deficit reduction to begin to stabilize the nation’s finances.

 Deficit 7.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Data for the above charts is from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Battles Rage Over Biden’s Clean Energy Projects as the Size and Cost Jump

Hey guess what. The cost of Biden’s ridiculously named Inflation Reduction Act is soaring. 

That means the the CRFB is already behind in its estimate.

For discussion, please see Battles Rage Over Biden’s Clean Energy Projects as the Size and Cost Jump

Meanwhile, Biden insists that reducing the deficit is a nonstarter in budget ceiling talks. 

Meanwhile, the debt ceiling clock is ticking away. And the onus is now on Democrats to so something.

Hello President Biden, the Ball Is In Your Court

This post originated at MishTalk.Com

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73 Comments
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Oldest Most Voted
Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Imagine that you were given a bunch of credit cards.
And then (on the quiet, off the record) you were assured you wouldn’t ever have to pay any of the balances.
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
unlike student loans, we all can default on credit cards, or corporate loans/bonds and on and on. it is just a business decision.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
Sorry, I was attempting sarcasm.
Imagine the folks given the credit cards are US Congressmen and women.
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worleyeoe
worleyeoe
3 years ago
Reply to  Lisa_Hooker
Not sure I’ve ever read anything from you that’s not attempting sarcasm and or being funny.
Keep up the good work.
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PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Heard the same story now for the last 5 decades.
I suspect I will be hearing it for the rest of my life.
Have learned to ignore it and focus on taking advantage of whatever opportunities it presents. Because worrying and complaining about it get you nowhere.
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worleyeoe
worleyeoe
3 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
Well after 50 years, we have structural, annual deficits of at least $1.5T per year. That’s completely unheard of. Total interest expense will approach $900B. And that intragovernmental / IOU debt is growing pretty fast as well. As it is rolled over, public debt is used to pay it off, so for those that say it doesn’t matter, well it does. It matters just like the unfunded SSA liabilities that have to be fixed.
And as YOU well know, inflation is going to be quite sticky with all this green new deal debt to be issued & spent to SLOWLY move America off oil.
I doubt you and me will be around in 50 more year, but it won’t take that long for America to have its come to Jesus debt moment.
Not worry or complaining. Just pointing out fact. And my portfolio is looking quite good, so no real worries yet.
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
3 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
one should care about more in life than mere shekel stacking. if one wants a full life. the ancients understood a life unexamined is a life not worth living. i’m 100% for investing regardless of our evil empire’s ways, but i think caring and protesting and engaging in a civil discourse we call democracy is proper use of life. we are gifted not to live in totalitarian empire. we have a democratic empire.
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worleyeoe
worleyeoe
3 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
Totally agreed, because it’s not too much further down the road that it’s going to take a collective “wake the F-up” moment to get DC pointed in the right direction.
For example, everyone is yammering about the $ losing its reserve currency status. People act like it can happen or won’t for decades. BS, there are at least 20+ countries, including BRICS, that are aligning with China to do exactly this. And, we’re having a national squabble over DT running for a 2nd term & a debt ceiling fight. Nothing about DC is working except spending WAY TOO MUCH MONEY.
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Naphtali
Naphtali
3 years ago
So passes the first republic.
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Jojo
Jojo
3 years ago
The interest incurred on our ever growing debt is the real crime. Interest payments gain us nothing. This should be the main driver to reduce and even eliminate any debt.
———
Interest Costs on the National Debt Are on Track to Reach a Record
High
February 16, 2023
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released updated budget and economic projections, which highlighted the nation’s unsustainable fiscal outlook. One of the most significant findings from that report is that the federal government’s borrowing costs have increased rapidly over the past year and will grow through the next decade. Most notably:
• Interest payments on the national debt were $475 billion in fiscal year 2022 — the highest dollar amount ever.
• Interest costs grew 35 percent last year and are projected to grow by another 35 percent in 2023.
• Relative to the size of the economy, interest costs in 2030 will reach 3.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), exceeding the previous post-World War II high of 3.2 percent of GDP, which was recorded in 1991.
• Within 10 years, net interest costs will exceed federal spending on crucial programs like Medicaid and defense.
• Spending for net interest will become the largest “program” in the federal budget within the next 30 years, outpacing spending on Medicare and Social Security.
Rising interest payments can crowd out other priorities in the federal budget and lead to a cycle of higher deficits, growing debt, and even more interest payments in the future.
…
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msspec
msspec
3 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
Jojo,
You raise crucial points that should awaken the electorate but I fear electric shock therapy is the only remedy for the somnambulant.
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worleyeoe
worleyeoe
3 years ago
Reply to  Jojo
Total interest payments in FY 2022 were $718B.
And in my opinion, making GDP comparisons is a joke. To do so suggests we can tax our way out of this by suggesting there’s this enormous pie to confiscate money from.
The best comparisons are debt to revenue or interest expense to revenue. That provides a much clearer picture of what’ happening as things get worse and worse.
We don’t have the entire GDP of the US at our disposal to solve the revenue vs spending problem that exists. In fact, making that comparison only obfuscates the issue that spending is spiraling out of control.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  worleyeoe
These politicians and economists believe that the enormous pie is the children and grandchildren.
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TheCaptain
TheCaptain
3 years ago
I love to see all these appalled and shocked comments here, people acting like the government has any choice but to not only continue deficit spending but to accelerate it exponentially. The US has been running a Global Debt Ponzi (GDP). Ponzis do not plateau nor do they have soft landings. The minute that the exponential growth chart is broken, they collapse. We don’t have capitalism we have crony capitalism that is based on fake debt money which has zero intrinsic value. Get your wealth into real money: gold, silver and platinum bullion coins because these are the only real saving vehicle in a Global Debt Ponzi collapse.
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Mjs357
Mjs357
3 years ago
Why do ppl think the upper-crust Leftist cares one iota about this? They bought MMT decades ago.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Mjs357
More Money Today?
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Jackula
Jackula
3 years ago
What we need is the get American competitive act not this inflationary BS…
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
3 years ago
we are in total STAGFLATION. there is no sign of deflation. the greatest name for the dumbphucks is the change from department of war to department of defense. when our policy went from defense to all out offensive war for past 60 years. the dumphucks and middlebrows will never catch on.
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El_Tedo
El_Tedo
3 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
Oil is $73 a barrel.
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ColoradoAccountant
ColoradoAccountant
3 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
When I was drafted we had antiwar riots in the streets. How did they stop that? Eliminate the draft and the soccer Moms went home, and the wars continued with paid mercenaries.
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
3 years ago
Reply to  ColoradoAccountant
drafts for stupid and unjust “wars” like nam always backfire in history. i saw my dopey brother enlist for it. i was young and realized he was stupid as was the slaughtering of rice farmers half way around the planet. the ancient romans went bad when they went to a professional army. our empire has been collapsing due to the endless wars by professional mercenaries who get bonuses in C suites of raytheon and pentagon for just waging war. they have nothing to do with defense. tis’ all offensive imperialism. i go to school block from “freedumb tower’. lost lots of pals in those towers in 2001. that was blow back from our propping up of saudi kingdom. just wars are rare. and citizens can easily be mustered to serve. fighting is no great skill. i think the us constiution is alright but not holy, but the us navy is consitutinal. not a standing army. for good reason. standing armies wage wars. ps. i think Nam was a slaughter and war crime. not really a war. the viet cong had no navy or air force. it was a civil war. our boys were duped. and abused. i feel sorry for you. my apologies for our evil empire.
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Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
The problem with your insightful analysis is we do not KNOW what would have happened if the US had not gone to Vietnam,
In the same way, we do not know what would’ve happened if Patton had proceeded into the USSR, or Clinton did not give most-favored trading status to China, etc etc.
We do know that Clinton bears a major responsibility for decimating the CIA before 9-1, and affirmative action enabled terrorists to pass through Logan Airport unstopped, but no one wants to learn from the mistakes, or offend anyone
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8dots
8dots
3 years ago
20% (Mar 2021) – 5% (Feb 2020) = 15% // [7.5% – 5%]/15% = 17%. It might get worse. In Europe things are worse.
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Bam_Man
Bam_Man
3 years ago
The cost of Biden’s ridiculously named Inflation Reduction Act is soaring because of inflation.
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MPO45v2
MPO45v2
3 years ago
Reply to  Bam_Man
Tyson Foods reported a loss yesterday stock down about 20% and I picked up some shares for the long term. How can they report a loss when meat prices at the grocery store are soaring? Well read the 10Q to find out but something is fundamentally wrong with the economy when prices are soaring and companies are taking losses.
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shamrock
shamrock
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45v2
The price they got for beef and pork was down around 6% in the quarter.
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MPO45v2
MPO45v2
3 years ago
Reply to  shamrock
“Second, input costs were higher compared to last year as our feed ingredient cost increased $145 million. We also realized an unfavorable year-over-year derivative impact of approximately $135 million due to volatility in commodity grain prices.”
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45v2
i’d suggest reading about profits in 20 years of inflation from 60s to mid 80s.
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MPO45v2
MPO45v2
3 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
There are always profits to be made, I still think inflation will explode and the Fed will hike rates to above 7% at some point in the future (not this year) because of the demographic crisis and ensuing mass labor shortages. It will be a great time to buy bonds assuming a default hasn’t happened.
It’s interesting you mention the 60’s to 80s because I just had a spreadsheet looking at inflation and the demographic mapping. In the 70s the oldest boomers (born in 1946) were coming into family formation age, the huge demand for housing drove inflation really high. The OPEC episode didn’t help either but it was demographics leading the drive.
We are now in a period where millenialls are in primary family formation age driving demand for housing but this time around we have 40+ million boomers retiring. There will be double the demand but half the labor resources. Won’t work out well unless it is fixed.
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ColoradoAccountant
ColoradoAccountant
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45v2
Aren’t the Boomers selling their houses?
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  ColoradoAccountant
No, they don’t need the money, they’re dying in place.
The question is what are the heirs going to do with the houses starting in about 10-20 years.
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Eighthman
Eighthman
3 years ago
I see two dangers. First, if you see monetarism as basically true, then the government simply keeps deficits at 2% or less. As with any commodity, the price adjusts to supply. Of course, getting Congress to do that may be a onerous task.
Second, I don’t see any health professionals discerning the danger of suicidal thinking especially in US culture. Look, if you get enough people to drift into suicidal behavior ( mass killings, drug overdoses, road rage, impulsive crimes), then your civilization becomes unglued and unmanageable. Your Army degrades. You stop going to public events. You get terrified of boarding a plane and so on. Nobody seems to see this. And, make no mistake, it strongly relates to things such as debt and war.
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MPO45v2
MPO45v2
3 years ago
Reply to  Eighthman
Oh I’ve seen it and projected even worse. By 2030, I am projecting 70 million people on social security and medicare. Literally ~40% of the population will be sitting around demanding goods and services from from the other 60% which is some demented form of socialism because the safety net is built around people contributing nothing instead of the next (younger) generations. The “labor shortage” we have right now is a joke to what is coming in 7 years. I won’t be surprised if we have the “Detroitization” of America by 2032.
Some of us plan on being in a different country semi-permanently moving forward.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45v2
What about Canada? Mexico? Tonga?
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Business Man
Business Man
3 years ago
I’m perplexed about the spending. I don’t understand how these people cannot see the catastrophe that arises from it. So it makes me wonder if they are really that shallow and shortsighted, or if this is just lemmings following the lead lemming off the cliff (party politics of FOMO) or if they really believe in Modern Monetary Theory that none of this matters. I know that most of the politicians don’t have an economics degree, and the ones that do, don’t seem to understand it either (AOC).
I know that spending begets votes and donations to their campaigns, but at some point don’t they see that this is going to destroy the country for their descendants? Is that the legacy they want, or are they so cynical that they just simply don’t care? I can believe that for Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer, but where are the patriots? Where are the adults?
We can all also clearly see that spending is creating a huge problem by crowding out resources for the private sector, and thus leading to inflation of these scarce resources (labor, materials, services, etc.). But they keep doing it.
It’s like an obese patient who is on several severe side-effect medications (interest rate hikes) for debilitating obesity-related diseases but they continue to eat like they haven’t a care in the world (government spending).
The government is killing the rest of us.
This is madness.
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Eighthman
Eighthman
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
The US has become a gerontocracy. Dementia Joe and Schumer are a heartbeat away from eternity, as is much of the Federal government. They may as well be Brezhnev, Chernenko or Andropov.
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Siliconguy
Siliconguy
3 years ago
Reply to  Eighthman
Schumer is the spring chicken of the group at 72. That tells you what you need to know. Biden, Pelosi, McConnell, and Feinstein are so old they are not even Boomers.
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Yooper
Yooper
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
They don’t see a catastrophe, IMHO, because of a few underlying drivers:
1) if all the central banks create fiat at the same rate (and happily so), there is no devaluation with respect to foreign exchange
2) domestically, as Mish has stated forever, inflation comes by definition with creating more fiat, but price inflation now is blamed on Russia, Green, etc. externalities (so don’t blame the printers)
3) The interest on our debt paid to the Fed gets returned (minus fees, of course) to the US Treasury
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Yooper
The interest on treasuries not owned by the Fed gets spent, driving up prices.
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Call_Me
Call_Me
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
I tend to think of it as a symptom of how the political system operates. A person attempting to make a career as a politician doesn’t gain from making cuts or solving perceived problems, they make career-oriented gains when they shower benefits on their circle and their portion of the electorate in order to earn a few more years ‘working for the people’. Leads to a larger problem in the future, but that is for the next pol to deal with.
Call_Me_Al
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Business Man
Business Man
3 years ago
Reply to  Call_Me
Yeah, I see that, but are there no good people in government? There is no one who can put aside their selfish interests for just a bit and actually do what’s right for the country?
If this is the case then we deserve what is coming.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
You are wandering the streets at mid-day with a lantern.
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KenNJ
KenNJ
3 years ago
Some of Bidens major missed opportunities:
Apple move half their production out of China – back to the USA? Nope. They moved to INDIA. Biden should have pushed them back to the hire US employees.
Coinbase is tired of attacks from LWarren so they are looking to move to the UAE. They will grow their employee numbers and tax payements to the UAE.
The O&G industry will supplement their CRUDE for refiners from VENEZUALA, not North Dakota or Texas.
Biden hates America, American values and American workers.
He ran as a moderate and is instead creating a corporate socialism system that rapes the middle class.
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shamrock
shamrock
3 years ago
Reply to  KenNJ
Biden should have pushed them back to the hire US employees.
There aren’t any available.
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Avery
Avery
3 years ago
What that guy with the funny voice and big ears said 31 years ago.
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Business Man
Business Man
3 years ago
Reply to  Avery
Alfred E. Nueman?
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
The simple three word philosophy of Nueman continues to be the philosophy of the masses.
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Jmurr
Jmurr
3 years ago
Reply to  Avery

Ross Perot. He and Pat Buchanan were right.

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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Avery
Most folks couldn’t understand the implications of the charts then and they still can’t.
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HippyDippy
HippyDippy
3 years ago
Don’t worry; when the currency collapses, our debt will immediately negated and we will have no problems switching to the new digital currency. Oh, not all the debts. Your personal debts will hang over you like a guillotine blade. But, that’s just you being a negative Nancy. Suck it up, Buttercup! Your masters must be appeased. And so the slaves love them even more.
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Business Man
Business Man
3 years ago
Reply to  HippyDippy
I see your comments fairly regularly, and I don’t disagree with the flavor of them, but you seem rather angry about it. Almost as if you are frustrated that people don’t see what you see.
In your opinion, what is a realistic plan to escape this paradigm of “slavery” that you see in our landscape? What has to happen, and how does it come about?
Would you characterize the people who were at the Capitol on January 6th as of the “slave” mentality? Or were they people that were disenchanted with their government, see exactly as you do, and wanted change? Well, the result is that many of them are now serving long prison sentences for trivial protest crimes like “parading.”
Assuming that our “masters” have a totalitarian bent about them (I don’t disagree, especially when it comes to Democrats) what are we to do? You also seem to imply that it’s a “uni-party,” so, again, what is to be done about this?
Or are you just venting? I’m not trying to be critical, but trying to understand what you are advocating.
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HippyDippy
HippyDippy
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
First of all, I’m not angry. I also don’t see people seeing life from my perspective any time soon. The slave has too much fear in their heart to be free. As far as a realistic plan? Just say no. It sounds simple, but that’s its genius. Say no to blindly obeying. But that has to come from the individual, not a group. And those guided tour insurrectionists? Slaves. Each and every one of them. Blindly following their chosen authority figure who talked a good game, but never delivered. Everything always boils down to the individual. Always. I’m not just venting, I’m offering another perspective for you to make your own decisions about what to do. Will you follow the next person selected from either party as the chosen one in our cult of personality culture? Or, will you follow your own mind? Most will choose anyone other than themselves. It would be horribly sad, except that their constant moaning about their present condition annoys me to no end. I hope that helps.
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Business Man
Business Man
3 years ago
Reply to  HippyDippy
I’m totally on board with self-sufficiency, if that’s what you are advocating. I think that’s a strong message. Taking control of one’s life is an absolute must, and I agree that many do not. They wait for others to do it for them.
But I think the problem in this country is that the government is ever-more present in our daily lives — and not by my choice. I recognize that others choose it, but I am but one vote in our system.
So what else am I to do? I have one business that I run, and two startups that I’m actively pursuing. Where would I have the time to run for office? Nor do I desire it, because the system corrupts people who do run, and it destroys one’s family life and ethics.
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HippyDippy
HippyDippy
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
I’m not talking about self-sufficiency. That’s impossible. To be cast out of a tribe was a death sentence, as it is truly difficult to survive that way. Interdependence, with a healthy serving of being self-sufficient enough to not be a bother is how free communities thrive. And it is your choice to a greater extent than you realize as to that government intrusion. I’m generally not a very nice person when some government nobody decides to tell me what to do. But it all boils down to the individual, which you skirted around. Will you choose to rule yourself? Or will you allow some mediocre nobody rule you? It’s amazing how much of that servitude we exhibit is just our exaggerated, and very blind, submission. If everybody just started ruling themselves, and living for their own pursuit of happiness, with no thought of what some nobody thought of it, our system would change immediately for the better. But people won’t. I accepted that a long time ago, and that there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t vote. I don’t care about their positions. I rule myself. That’s the answer. But first, you have to know yourself. Balls to bone as the Oracle said in The Matrix. And I do.
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
3 years ago
Reply to  HippyDippy
harry browne book, “how i found freedom in an unfree world”. i concur. men who think for themselves is rare. trump followers as dumb as dem followers. the human primate species is wired to need silver back men to follow. and those silver back men will point to the troop of human primates on other side of mountain as a danger, and only he can protect you. all he wants is all the women and bananas. middlebrows are never going to change. been like this for hundreds of thousands of years. i suggest graeber book, dawn of everything.
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Jackula
Jackula
3 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
I concur, very excellent book…
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HippyDippy
HippyDippy
3 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
I pretty much live as free as can be now. Once I fully grasped the ridiculous nature of authority, everything else just fell into place. Of course, the road to that state of realization makes Louisiana roads look beautiful in comparison.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
#1 Accept the fact that you can’t fix stupid. There are many flavors of stupid.
#2 Take control of as much of your life as you can. It varies from time to time. (R A Heinlein identified the “Rational Anarchist.”)
.
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LawrenceBird
LawrenceBird
3 years ago
Eliminate most, if not all, of the 2017 tax give away (especially to real estate and hedge fund types) would go a long way to closing the gap. It would also make it more likely for the other side to accept cuts in some programs.
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Business Man
Business Man
3 years ago
Reply to  LawrenceBird
This is a completely false notion. Federal revenues have soared since the enactment of the 2017 tax law.
We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
It’s all the left has. False arguments against Trump policies.
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shamrock
shamrock
3 years ago
Reply to  Business Man
In Obama’s second term tax revenue increased 32%. In Trump’s term tax revenue increased 4.6%, not even keeping up with inflation. In 2 year’s of Biden revenue increased 49%. I imagine that increase is from the trillions in handouts.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  LawrenceBird
Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
We’re totally screwed. If FED rates remain where they are, we’re going to have a collapse within 2 years IMO.
We need to kill the IRA. After I get my $7500 credit. We need to cut off all our democracy protection. Where have we ever improved the lives of the citizens in countries where we protect democracy?
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MPO45v2
MPO45v2
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Germans and Japanese seem to be doing very well.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45v2
That was 80 years ago and we were fighting them. Not protecting them.
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vanderlyn
vanderlyn
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45v2
we created and forced democracy on them, and we became the imperial war mongers using corporatism as our excuse. as mussolini explained, fascism is corporatism. the middle brows here were dumbed down systematically to oblige. go off and work for the empire………
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Call_Me
Call_Me
3 years ago
Reply to  vanderlyn
Some would contend that the transition to imperialism began before then. Perhaps internationally with ‘Remember the Maine’ TM or further back with a number of gold rushes that helped the ‘manifest destiny’ doctrine.
Call_Me_Al
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Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Forget Fed rates and fixed the problem–too many public employees, too many programs, TOO inefficient.
Begin with a net reduction in the annual budget of ALL government departments/programs. Each Fed dept to get an initial budget cut implemented over one fiscal year, Cuts would be based on priorities determined by the House. For example HUD might get 15%, Energy 35%, Education 40%,
If the performance of any department decreases because of the cut, the amount of the cut is increased by 20% and implemented by a budget cut task force from the Congress. THiIS is called doing more with less, which is what I have to do becasue of Federal waste. It starts with WORKING HARDER and more effectively.
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KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
Cutting employee salaries does almost nothing. And that’s one of the better ways the gov’t spends. They pay income taxes and prop up the economy. Would much rather spend on that than on a million dollar missle.
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Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
I did not mention cutting salaries. Essentially govt needs to restructure to resemble a profit-driven enterprise–not a retirement home
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msspec
msspec
3 years ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
”Forget Fed rates and fixed the problem–too many public employees, too many programs, TOO inefficient….”
Bullseye, Captain.
Fiscal Discipline is hard.
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Lisa_Hooker
Lisa_Hooker
3 years ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
Tax federal employees at 110% of gross income.
Many will quickly find other work.
.
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