Follow up: is it realistically achievable ever again, and should it even be a goal to be concerned with?
In: Economics
Per person inflation adjusted federal revenue has gone up 3x over the last 50 years. Sadly, federal spending measured the same way had gone up 4x. So even with increased tax collection, the federal government is increasing spending even more.
So to balance the budget, you have to keep spending flat (no more increases), or if you want to balance it faster (less than 10 years), cut spending back to the still very high levels of 15-20 years ago.
But unlike non-governments, voters don’t hold people in Congress accountable for what they spend money on and they don’t like to make tough decisions like what not to spend money on, so they just spend more and more over time, especially when they can use an emergency as an excuse to the voters.
The most viable political solution to that is a balanced budget constitutional amendment passed by a super-majority of state legislatures, because Congress doesn’t have the incentive structure to hold themselves to a balanced budget.
The second most viable is to elect libertarian-leaning Republicans to Congress and a Democratic President, because then Congress won’t pass all the excessive spending the President proposes, but that’s only a short-term solution, until the voters screw it up during the following election.
Latest Answers