You're viewing part of a thread.
All of what you mentioned could become a reality once we're out of debt and into budget surplus. Once we achieve this, I would totally be onboard with it. Until then.. no we can't. We need to cut spending first and re-evaluate the budget. This is basic things that citizens do. Every day people who calculate money coming in vs money going out. And our government apparently is incapable of doing this. Or intentionally doing this to tank this nation. It's one or the other.
Additionally, you don't understand budget surplus. There are two sectors of the economy: public and private. If the public budget has surplus, it means it's taking more money from the private sector than it is giving back. By definition, it's making the private sector poorer removing money from it. Is that what you want?
When we get to a point that the government collects more money than it spends... that's a good thing. They will need to re-adjust the budget (which means cutting taxes). Yes that is exactly what I want.
Again, you're not understanding the economics of this. The state getting more money than it spends, NECESSITATES that the private sector will LOSE MONEY.
When Colorado first opened the market to marijuana sells, Colorado got an excess in taxes. Colorado acknowledged this and gave back the surplus to its citizens.
As the residents of Colorado are about to find out, legal pot pays. The decriminalization of marijuana in the Centennial State has been so successful that every Colorado adult is in line to receive a $7.63 refund, Associated Press reports (via High Times). Jan 30, 2015
The Federal Government shouldn't have a problem doing the same, then balancing their budget, which in turn would cut taxes so the following year they'd be closer to breaking even.
You're accusing me of not knowing what I'm talking about, but it appears you're projecting. I don't understand how this is complicated.
How does this disprove what I'm saying? It's exactly what I'm saying: you DON'T want a profit in the public budget, to the point of the state returning money to people to prevent this and cancel any profit.
The Federal Government shouldn't have a problem doing the same
No, it doesn't have a problem. It's as easy as cutting expenditure and raising taxes. The problem is those aren't always good things to do, depending on where you cut the budget, and where you rise the taxes. But the whole point that you're understanding is that this is UNNECESSARY. The state can create as much currency as it wants, and in doing so, the effect is increasing the wealth of the private sector. The state can spend as much as it wants regardless of public debt, it doesn't need to balance anything. It creates its own currency, what part don't you understand? The state could hire tomorrow 1 million unemployed people and put them to work in public housing, healthcare and education, and do so without increasing the debt or the taxes.
When you say create as much currency as it wants, you're talking about printing money? Printing more money devalues the dollar. That doesn't increase wealth. For example $85,000 in 1990 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $204,252.98 today, an increase of $119,252.98 over 34 years.
No, I'm not talking of "printing" because nowadays money is created digitally.
Again, you're showing your lack of knowledge of economics. Inflation is mostly not generated by creation of money. Have a look at all the inflationary episodes that the USA has lived over the past 100 years, and you'll find that not one of them was caused by creation of currency. That's not to say that the state should create infinite currency or that it can do so without generating macroeconomic imbalances, but creation of money to employ people in these sectors isn't a driver of inflation, and could actually serve to deflate prices.
If you create public housing for cheap and sell it for cheap, you reduce housing prices which reduces inflation. If you create public hospital which treat people for free, you'll have a more efficient system of healthcare that spends less money per patient (for example the US spends more than twice as much in healthcare per patient than Spain and its quality is much worse for the average citizen), therefore reducing the cost of healthcare for people. If you make good public universities funded with state budgets you can reduce enormously the overly inflated tuition costs in current US universities, therefore again reducing inflation.
You keep showing me that you've never looked at the empirical evidence that supports the "facts" of economics you're saying, i.e., you're just repeating what neoliberal grifters say, and I'm sorry but they're proven wrong. I suggest you look into it with a more critical eye and look at the actual evidence.
Tell me you've never passed an econ class, without telling me you've never passed an econ class.
✅
I'm sorry but you don't understand macroeconomics. The state creates its own money, in the case of the US, though the Federal Reserve. They can literally create as much money as they want. The US federal bank could tomorrow do 10 keystrokes on a keyboard and pay all bonds that other entities hold, therefore resetting its debt to 0. You can't compare a private home with the state in terms of spending, because you don't get indebted in a currency you create yourself, whereas the state does. The US debt is nominated in USD, so it can always repay it, and it could do so prematurely at the stroke of a keyboard. The reasons why they don't do that are varied, but none of them is "not having enough dollars".
There are plenty of countries with debts above 100% of GDP while offering universal healthcare and free or almost free education up until university (included), see most of western Europe. Debt isn't an issue preventing the state from paying for services. Debt is a non-issue made up to be a problem to prevent people from thinking that the state can spend more money in improving the quality of life of its citizens.