I’m a middle aged dude with a family, own a house, have four kids, investments, all the adulting things.
However, I’m still not sure how a multi-trillion dollar national defecit seeps down to affect my day-to-day life
In: 492
HOT TAKE: The much bigger issue is the USA’s inability to tax the rich coupled to growing inequality.
Your taxes don’t get deposited into an account at the central bank. They simply disappear. Uncle Sam cashes your check, the money is removed from your checking account and is not added anywhere.
When Uncles Sam prints a paycheck for some meat inspector with the FDA, it is actually printing money. Bob cashes his paycheck and money appears in his account.
The purpose of taxation is to induce demand for our currency. You can only pay US taxes in US dollars. The other purpose is to destroy some money so the market isn’t flooded with dollar bills.
It is hella complicated and not 1 dollar in must equal 1 dollar out, but printing money does affect inflation. **If we can’t pull enough money out of circulation via taxes, the dollar eventually becomes worthless.**
Taxing the rich — we are told over and over by the rich — is completely impossible. They will simply take their ball and go home. Find another nice country to protect their private property.
Pay no attention to the fact the government (both parties) is bought and paid for by the rich, or that our laws are literally written by the rich for their own benefit and rubber-stamped by the government.
As more of the nation’s wealth is concentrated in fewer and wealthier hands, there is simply less and less to tax. Eventually that house of cards must collapse.
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