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[–] Fuzzy_Dunlop ago 

That is way oversimplifying it. Growth and prosperity were highest right after WWII when the rest of the industrialized world had been bombed into oblivion and we were the only manufacturing power left. Also, you can't just compare the tax rate on the top tax bracket and assume that reflects the actual tax rate. For one, the top tax bracket was way higher back then. Our current top tax bracket covers the top 1% roughly, if you adjusted the early 1950s top tax bracket for inflation it would only cover less than .1% and obviously a way smaller percentage of the income of the people it actually covered. Another way you know that isn't a fair comparison is that the actual amount of money paid in income tax in the early 50s as percent of GDP was lower than it was last year.

And before you respond, I am not claiming trickle-down economics is true. I am just saying that the inverse is also not true.

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[–] Racer_the_observer ago 

Maybe your right. What about Trumps claim that he and the rest of the billionaires could pay off the national debt. Do you think they should or do you think the poor should also have to pay part of it?

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[–] Fuzzy_Dunlop 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

Most of it needs to fall on the rich just because of the wealth disparity, you just can't really tax the poor that much more while leaving them enough for sustenance. Not just the billionaires though. If I were in charge of solving the debt problem I would do the following: 1. Cut discretionary spending. This would primarily come from defense, homeland security simply because defense is the majority of discretionary spending. Defense spending I would temporarily cap at equal to the next 4 top spending countries in the world combined. It is absurd that we spend so much relative to the rest of the world. This would entail pausing a lot of R&D and new weapons acquisitions, but those programs can be re-addressed once the debt is paid off. I would also cut foreign military aid, and some across the board (I would need to study each departments budget to be more specific than that).
2. Legalize and tax marijuana. Decriminalize other drugs and other victim-less crimes. This reduces law enforcement and prison spending and I just don't think people should be imprisoned for victim-less crimes.
3. Raise the Medicare tax by .9% (.45% on employers, .45% on employees). Medicare needs to be independently solvent. 4. Have Medicare negotiate for better prices. Allow the import of drugs from other first world nations (would need to go nation by nation to determine which ones had a good enough FDA-like department to trust, but I'm sure it would at least be Canada, Australia, Western Europe, etc.) I don't know how much money this would actually save, but when you see how much more Medicare pays for medical expenses compared to the Canadian and British governments it seems like it should be a lot.
5. Create a new tax bracket at $1.8 million+ at 44%.
6. Raise capital gains tax rates to be more inline with income tax rates, or simply treat them as income. 7. This is the big step. Remove the income cap for the Social Security tax. This is a huge tax increase so I would put a lot of restrictions on it. It would be written to be temporary. If less than 85% of it went to the interest on the national debt and the principal of the national debt for 2 years it should automatically end. After 15 years it would expire. Or when the national debt was paid off (or close to paid off since internal debt to Social Security can't really be paid off until it is needed and some long term bonds could not be bought back).

I haven't run the numbers for a few years now, but it should pay off the national debt is about 12 years. At that point the biggest tax would expire and we can decide whether or not to restore foreign aid, defense, and the other cuts.