Note the recommendation to increase taxes. As one who for a period was a practicing economist and controller of a several billion dollar organization the only long term solution is to reduce spending. Raising taxes will never stimulate growth except growth in government employment and spending. Whilst we must reach reasonable accommodations for the safety net in unemployment insurance payments, food stamps, and other programs originally designed to carry people through tough times, when you are running a deficit you essentially only have three choices: raise taxes (which kills growth); print money (which is sort of what the U.S. is doing in part and which will ultimately lead to undesirable inflation rates if not hyper-inflation); or reduce spending. Come to think of it, there is a fourth solution: bankruptcy. Hello Greece, hello California.
I guessed #6 – close, but no cigar. Nonetheless, A DEFICIT GREATER THAN 1/10th OF GDP??? How can our country possibly deal with this?
Note the recommendation to increase taxes. As one who for a period was a practicing economist and controller of a several billion dollar organization the only long term solution is to reduce spending. Raising taxes will never stimulate growth except growth in government employment and spending. Whilst we must reach reasonable accommodations for the safety net in unemployment insurance payments, food stamps, and other programs originally designed to carry people through tough times, when you are running a deficit you essentially only have three choices: raise taxes (which kills growth); print money (which is sort of what the U.S. is doing in part and which will ultimately lead to undesirable inflation rates if not hyper-inflation); or reduce spending. Come to think of it, there is a fourth solution: bankruptcy. Hello Greece, hello California.