Debt, Death & Taxes
16th October 2002 Robert Camilleri
The Conservative government doctrine is essentially defined as the party of tax relief. But now conservatives have converted themselves into the party of debt retirement. The conservative government has lost interest in tax cutting and instead wants to devote the surplus tax payments and asset sales over the next 3 years to paying down the national debt. The Howard-Costello government, seen as militant debt hawks, has announced their goal is to retire the entire national debt by 2005.
Has this government forgotten all of the economic and political lessons of the past 20 years? Take the American experience of the Reagan Government, they used surpluses to cut marginal tax rates,
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Parliament will spend the money, because it is in their nature. The debt hawks say, stash the surplus money away so it 's available for a rainy day. The truth is, for parliament; every day is a rainy day. The Howard government real concern is that if they are sitting on this cash the public will be screaming out for tax cuts, so repaying debt is a quick an easy way to take the focus off this get rid of the cash.
Tax reform is the smarter strategy rather than reducing the debt burden and it will grow the GDP faster. A dollar devoted to reducing marginal tax rates or to reducing the tax penalty against saving and investment will yield a higher return to the Australian economy, and thus to future generations, than a dollar used for retiring debt
But even if we suspend our disbelief and assume that every surplus penny was used to buy down debt, the economic benefit would be trivial. The primary argument in favour of debt reduction is that it will relieve the burden from our children of having to pay off the debt in the future. But as long as we don 't add to the debt over the next decade through a return to deficit spending, the debt burden on the next generation will fall automatically. It already is happening. Even without a penny of actual debt retirement, the debt as a share of GDP will fall from 15% of GDP in the early 1990s, using the current debt levels, to about 8% of GDP now. In
This idea of reducing taxes to increase investment within the economy sounds like a good idea but hasn’t lived up to its expectations historically. The idea of supply side economics wasn’t a new idea for the American tax code. During the early 1920s, income tax rates were cut multiple times which averaged to a total of most rates being cut by a little less than half. The Mellon Tax Cuts named after Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. He believed that changes in income tax rates causes individuals to change their behavior and practices. As taxes rise, tax payers attempt to reduce taxable income by either working less, retiring earlier, reducing business expansions, restructure companies or spending more money on accountants to find tax loopholes. If executed properly tax cuts can actually benefit economic growth, data from the Internal Revenue Service(IRS) showed that the across-the-board tax cuts in the early 1920s resulted in greater tax payments and larger tax share paid by those in the higher incomes. As the marginal tax rate on the highest income earners were cut from 60 percent or more to just 25 percent, the amount that this tax group payed soared from around 300 million to 700 million per year. (See Figure 2) This sudden massive increase in revenue allowed the U.S. economy to rapidly expand during the mid and late 20s. Between 1920 to 1929, real gross national product grew at an annual average rate of 4.7 percent and
"Does Australia Have A Good Income Tax System?" is a research paper that was published in the International Business and Economic Research Journal during May 2013. The paper was written by Anthony Stokes and Sarah Wright who are both economics professors at the Australian Catholic University. This research paper begins by comparing the tax system in Australia to that of member countries of the Convention on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD is an organization that works to promote policies that improve economic and social development. At the time that this paper was written, a total of 34 OECD member countries spanned across the globe, including: Australia, Canada, and the United States. Stokes and Wright
The growing national deficit is a looming problem in the United States now more than ever. The national debt is constantly increasing and government spending is out of control. If these issues are not solved then they could spell disaster for the nation’s economy when the infamous debt ceiling is finally reached. Currently the national policy on the debt is to continue raising the debt limit until a solution is found that is agreeable between both parties in Congress. The two main issues of over spending and the constant raising of the debts ceiling by Congress can both be resolved by government spending reform, balancing the federal budget and initiating pro-growth policies in order to increase the government’s tax revenue.
The United States economy is racing ahead at dangerous speeds, and it may be too late to prevent the return of widespread inflation. Ideally the economy should move ahead gradually and grow at a steady manageable rate. Mae West once stated “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful” and it seems the U.S. Treasury Secretary agrees. The Secretary announced that due to our increasing surplus and booming economy, instead of having an outsized tax cut, we should use the surplus to further pay down the national debt. A tax cut, though most Americans would favor it initially, would prove counter productive. Cutting taxes would over stimulate an already raging economy, and enhance the possibilities of an
As Reaganomics was effective in the past, it can still be today. The federal government should cut tax rates for not only the people, but also for businesses to promote people to spend their money, therefore it goes back into the system, helping the economy grow.
The amount of money that the United States government owes as of October 17, 2004 at 03:48:52 pm GMT was $7,435,016,998.21. The debt has increased by an average of $1.7 billion per day since September 30, 2003! From a more individual perspective, currently the United States population is roughly around
Many believe the country's dramatic decent into debt began with a choice, not a crisis. In January of 2001, with the budget balanced, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast that the nation would have over a $2 trillion dollar surplus by 2010, enough money to pay off the entire national debt. In the years following 2001 political leaders chose to cut taxes, increase spending, and wage two wars solely with borrowed funds (Montgomery, 2011). Today the national debt is larger, as a percentage of the economy, than at any time in U.S. history except for the period shortly after World War II.
I agree that a solution to fix the issue of the national debt is to increase taxes by fifty-seven percent or cut all government spending by thirty-seven percent. Although I agree with it, I think there maybe a way to improve it without making things awkward. Increasing the tax percentage could fix our problem, I just wonder how the younger generations will handle this considering the financial situation they are dealing with now with high student debt and other economic factors. Cutting government spending is not necessarily a bad thing. However, if you cut spending on vital programs like Medicare, the quality of products from the programs may not help us the way they were meant to
Over the four years from 2009-10 to 2012-2013, Labor had met its fiscal rule of keeping the average spending growth rate to less than 2% a year (Musgrave, R. A. n.d). This was the lowest period of spending growth in 23 years, meaning that not enough money was being injected into the circular flow of income. This reduced aggregate demand as consumer spending was low. In order to ensure that key spending was sustainable, structural improvements were required for the 2014-15 Budget. Overall, the Labor government has left a disastrous legacy of high debt for the Liberal government to try and overcome.
Since the nation’s very beginning, it has carried a debt from the American Revolution. Only once in the entire U.S. history has been the debt zero, during President Andrew Jackson’s administration in the 1830’s. President Jackson set a budget like the other future and past presidents, but actually stayed within its parameters. However, the debt kept growing after his presidency and reached $18 trillion dollars today. The world has changed a lot since the 1830’s, the methods used during that period can no longer be the solution in 2015 because there are just too many factors that must be considered. The size and the population of the country have changed dramatically, foreign relationships are far more complicated and broader, and people’s expectations of the government are different.
Maria comes home one day earlier than usual. Her family, two daughters of age five and eight and a stay-at-home husband, is surprised to see her so early and unexpectedly. The tired look on her face reveals the experience she had at work. She brings out a sluggish smile as her daughters rush up to greet her with their warm embraces, reminding her of the happiness they constantly provide but also saddened by their questionable future. Quietly, she sits down in front of her anxious spouse as he patiently awaits the news, sensing the tension in the air.
Debt.” 21). In other words, at least one-fifth of tax money did not bring US citizens any benefits. Besides, less capital is available for the federal government to invest in the
Liberals and conservatives currently have opposing views on how to decrease the Federal debt. Over all, Democrats believe that the way to reduce the debt is to heavily tax the rich. Senate Democrats developed a debt reduction plan that would cut 4 trillion dollars from the projected borrowing over the next decade, without touching the expensive health, retirement and social programs. Within the plan, sharp cuts will happen at the Pentagon and other
While campaigning in 1980’s Ronald Reagan promoted his solution to fixing the economic debt that the United States accumulated over the years. This solution was named “Reaganomics”. The United States was left with a $2.6 trillion dollar debt from President Reagan theory by cutting taxes, and the Federal Revenue would increase because economic activity will increase. President Reagan focused cutting down
Throughout most of the country’s history, the United States’ federal government maintained a reasonable level of national debt. For example, the total national debt in 1981 was $998 billion. Since then, however, the government has generated significant budget deficits, and the level of debt has risen to $16.7 trillion in 2013 (Calleo, 39). Budget deficits are caused