Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

oof.  That would leave a mark.

A... DEN... mark.

Anyone got a taser

Which is another reason to go ahead and do it and put to rest the idea that it would make a difference.

But yeah, ideologically I'm also not in favor of ANY more taxes, the government already takes more than it should and wastes far too much of that.

I definitely agree that it is MUCH more of a spending problem than a revenue problem but revenues could reasonably be a bit higher.  

For eight years from 1995-2002 we had roughly balanced budgets.  Back then revenues and expenditures each averaged a hair under 18.5% of GDP:


Compare that to the last eight years:

As I said, I agree that it is MOSLY a spending problem.  When comparing 1995-2002 to 2017-2024 we see that spending has increased by 5.32% of GDP so that is the bulk of the problem but revenue is down by 1.71% of GDP so there is a revenue component to the problem.  

That's true if you think revenue collection was okay where it was in 95-02.

If you think that even then too much was being collected, well then we only have a spending problem and not a revenue problem.

On an ideological level I agree with you but on a pragmatic level this just isn't practical:

Before WWII we had single-digit % of GDP spending.  Then spending shot up for the war.  After the war it came back down and was actually under 11% in 1948 but by 1953 it was back up to almost 20%.  In the last 70 years (1955-2024) spending hasn't been below 15.72% of GDP in ANY year and it has averaged almost 20%.  It just isn't realistic to think that US Federal spending is going to get a whole lot lower than that and if "we the people" demand spending at levels close to 20% of GDP then ultimately we are going to have to pay taxes at levels close to 20% of GDP.  

In the last 70 years (1955-2024) US Federal spending was <16% of GDP twice, in 1956 and 1965.  It was <17% of GDP a grand total of five years:  The aforementioned two below 16% and 1955, 1957, and 1966.  It was below 17.5% in 13 years and it was below 18.5% in 24 years:

That is about one-third of the years since 1955 so the other two-thirds had spending in excess of 18.5% of GDP.  That tells me that, as a practical matter, US Voters are not going to support spending much below about 18.5% of GDP so taxes are going to have to collect somewhere close to that.  

We "need" to cut spending, but I don't see how it's possible beyond some rather small cuts that raise considerble uproar.  A Congress that really cut spending would get voted out.

There is quite a bit but I don’t think much can be cut.

F-35.  

If only everyone would get a f'ing job....

There’s a lot of speculation that todays standard aircraft carriers will become obsolete in the next “ real war”. Essentially, they can’t hide at sea anymore due to satellite reconnaissance, there is no realistic defense against hordes of kamakazie drones, and now there are hypersonic weapons that we supposedly lag behind on the tech. It’s been years since I looked up the numbers but I think the US is the only country that operates full size carriers and we operate something like 8-12 of them. The other countries only operate 5-6 of the much smaller carriers. I think China only has two and those are Soviet origin.