The only way the government that can print it's own money goes broke is if people stop trusting in the value of that dollar. That shows up in inflation which we haven't had in large amounts since the early Reagan years.
Mathematically, the two things that are hurting people's pocket books hardest over last few decates are higher education and medical care. Getting the cost of these under control will go a long way toward alleviating the economic stress placed upon Americans.
Housing might be a culture shift we just have to accept. With more and more people, and a finite amount of land, its natural for the demand for housing to increase over time, while the supply has limiting factors. The idea of a 3 bed, 2 bath house, with a yard, might be a bit outdated. As a society, we may have to shift to more compact living.
That's not true, sure you can print all the dollars you want but the more you print, the less it is worth because it puts more in circulation. There's plenty of governments across the globe that have gone broke due to bad spending habits, and if the US keeps going at the rate they are currently going, or even worse, they go back to the spending habits of the last Democrat controlled congress, then the US will be another of them that went broke. It won't be too long before interest on borrowed money is one of the top federal expenditures.....things are actually about to get really bad unless we elect some actual adults who will balance the books and right the ship. Judging by Trump and Hillary's nominations, we're FAR away from even considering that.
Like a I said, we haven't had large amounts of inflation since the early 80's which is over 30 years ago. The sky isn't falling.
Most pay nothing and are a net negative tax to benefit ratio, so more than most isn't necessarily a good thing.
I don't like posting my financial situation online but pretty much all the tax changes would effect me negatively except for the inheritance tax. I don't have any ultra-rich relatives.
If a school has 5000 seats available and 3x more people applying than 10 years ago, wouldn't you expect it to get more competitive? The same applies when you turn colleges into paper mills. 40 years ago, you could get a 'career' job with just a high school education. Now its extremely difficult to get a decent paying job w/out a degree. This is a case where the poor get poorer. We need alternative means for people to get well paying jobs. We have slowly scuttled the apprenticeship in lou of college.
Of course, we don't want to just print money to such a degree as to cause hyper-inflation. However, the U.S. is nowhere near "going broke." The U.S. is able to sell bonds-- borrow money-- by offering rather low interest rates so all those investors out there don't seem to think of this lending as very risky. Yes, we saw a big increase in debt since 2008-- but the same goes with almost every country out there. The financial crisis hit government revenue hard: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/country-list/government-debt-to-gdp
I don't think you understand what happens if the US gets to a point to where they can't afford the payments on the loans that is bankrolling the country.... Perhaps you think they can just keep writing more checks ad infinitum, but that's a child's perspective of economics. Believing that there will never be consequences for out of control deficit spending is a HUGE part of the problem.
That was my point. We haven't had any significant inflation in over 30 years. If we do, we can adjust. We don't have adjust before the fact. Edit. Oops typo
If we're being fair, taxing churches (and also mosques, synagogues, temples, shrines, and so on) is the closest thing to an intelligent idea that he came up with. I think he deserves partial credit.
A lot of stuff to digest here and will try to get back with some of my recommendations later when I have more time. I will just post two things that I think we need to do as a country that will greatly improve things. 1. As a country we need to better know history including the founding of this country and the founding documents of this. 2. Focus less on the short term and also basing our votes on the idea that any candidate or party can suddenly change things. Personally I believe that short term thinking is what will ultimately doom us not just as a country but as a species.
I think the point is that in the parts of the US where high density living is incentivized (NYC, SF, etc.), it is already the norm. Why does everyone else need to make the shift? ----------- I've noticed a few of you make the assertion that it is possible for a physician to get replaced in the march towards automation. I simply cannot see that. I'd like to understand what aspects you are specifically talking about. If you guys are referring to computers using an algorithm to churn out a treatment, these are already pretty common in medicine. However, their use is more supplemental than anything.
Not federal income taxes though, and that's what he was talking about. Illegals only pay state and local sales taxes unless they steal someone's identity in order to get a job that would pay federal payroll taxes. Truly poor people pay no federal income taxes or VERY little, most end up getting back a lot more than they paid in due to tax credits.