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Comment by marricks | Hacker News Reader

It’s fun how people only seem to talk or care about the national debt when it’s an election year. Almost as if it’s all a ploy to convince voters big projects that help them can’t be paid for.

But sure enough the other 3 years of the cycle will be spent raising the defense budget and cutting taxes mostly for businesses and the 1%. Hmmm....

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People only care about the national debt when a Democrat is in the White House. The GOP’s tone will completely change once Trump is gone. A natural disaster strikes? “Oh, we can’t afford to send any aid. Have you seen the debt? We need to cut spending from some social program.” Unless, that is, there’s a recession, then it’ll be “we need to provide some tax relief.”

I don't know why you're being downvoted. The natural disaster is something that happened. That's the exact reason aid was delayed to New York and New Jersey post Hurricane Sandy. There really is no equivalency. Democrats when they care about deficits in or out of power the walk the walk. Mostly caring about deficits doesn't fit their model. They're Keynesians whatever. But Republicans just straight up never care when they are in power. They run the deficit up like no one is ever going to have to pay the bill. Then they lose the election and discover a conscience. Its been thirty years of this at this point. It is what it is.

Republicans only care when a Democrat is in the White House. Democrats don't seem to care, ever.

Baloney. Democrats bent over backwards to get a good CBO score for the Affordable Care Act. They desperately wanted it to be revenue neutral, and they undershot; it increased revenue due to lower-than-anticipated uptake in the Obamacare marketplaces.

It's not good when Trump does it for "Republican party" purposes (to boost stockholder returns).

It's not good when others do it for "Democratic party" purposes (to offer large quantities of free stuff).

It really is as simple as that. Keep the budget balanced (certainly outside of a recession!) and you'll be less likely to be caught with your pants down. Keep it unbalanced and you'll be at the mercy of the markets.

Who knows where is the 10 year headed, 5%, 10%, even more? The monetary system would probably be rewritten before even 5% ever happens, with serious disorder on the way. Assuming we're not at the beginnings of the end of this iteration of money.

We should be concrete, and reject false equivalencies.

The signature Democratic legislative achievement in the last decade was the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), which came with deeply unpopular pay-fors: "Cadillac" taxes hitting union health plans, the "net investment income" tax hitting high earners, and others.

The signature Republican legislative achievement in the last decade was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ("Trump tax cuts"). This was chiefly deficit-financed (no pay-fors), excepting a popular repeal of the individual mandate and an unpopular-but-deferred middle-class tax increase 10 year later.

Democrats paid for their stuff, Republicans didn't, and Republicans won the messaging battle. "Keep the budget balanced" is terrible advice from a political perspective. It only gives space for the next administration to spend more money.

Ehhh, what?

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-budget

I am not in the 1% and I had a substantially reduced tax bill from the tax cuts. The perception that they only benefit the 1% is propaganda. It’s also patently false.

My tax bill went up, as did many other people I know. I assume a large number of people in high tax states had a higher bill due to SALT changes amongst others.

> The perception that they only benefit the 1% is propaganda. It’s also patently false.

The primary benefit went to the ultra wealthy, not surprising given lobbying. You can write off the cost of a private jet, for example.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/03/07/private-jets-re...

https://www.businessinsider.com/private-jet-trump-tax-bill-d...

But what did you save? $500?

I mean I got 50 dollars back a paycheck too but some how the top 1% grew their wealth by something like 30%... that 50 bucks did not have the same effect on me somehow.

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