It just hit me! A great way to solve the headache of the US natinal debt. I’m slappin my forehead as to why I didn’t get this before. It’s simple. The US Treasury Dept, Bureau of Fiscal Service says the national debt is 36.7 trillion bucks. (Of which 7 trillion is that for which the gov dipped into the Social Security Administration’s piggybank) And the top 1 percent, which comprises 1.3 million families, is worth 49 trillion bucks.
Here’s what we do. We ask the top 1 percent to give us all their money. They say, sure, we want to help. We take all their money and we pay off the US national debt in its entirety. Then we see what we have left. So, 49 trillion minus 36.7 trillion is uh, carry the 1, ah 12.3 trillion bucks. Then we divide it up and give it back to the top 1 percent that gave us their money. So that would be 12.3 trillion divided by 1.3 million = $9,461,538 and 46 cents for each of the generous families of the 1%.
So each family still has over 9 million bucks, which is a lot. Some of the families would find it hard to scrape by on this but they would remain in the prestigious class of Millionaires and Billionaires, our Social Security fund would be out of danger, and the value of the US dollar is out of trouble. And best of all we can pour more money into our all-important Department of Defense. Who could ask for more??????
(Some didn’t get the message so here it is: to convey how the astronomical deficits of the US government are reciprocated by the astronomical excesses of the super rich class. And one reason why we are now moving toward becoming a failed society – the unconscionable wealth gap and the disappearing middle class. And further, why legislation accused of being socialist is necessary to help the lower socio economic classes survive.)
2 replies on “29. US National Debt -Vanished”
Ray, Your analysis of the debt crisis in the US is correct, the collapse of societies is almost always the result of excess debt leading to debasement of the currency, runaway inflation, and chaos. Trump pretty much predicted as much in his first inaugural address and he is quickly bringing it about, adding $8 Trillion to the debt his first term and on schedule to do the same or worse this time.
Ouch, the term “collapse of societies” is scary, but many have collapsed, as the US in 1929, and almost again in 2008. AOC said, “Whenever another person becomes a billionaire it is a failure of US economic policy.” Someone asked me, well how much tax should the wealthy pay? No one ever says. I think the measure of an economically viable nation would be the measure of the wealth gap. We should use taxation as a method to bring the control of wealth by the bottom 50% up to 10% and the control of the top 1% down to 18%. Something like this should be the goal, as a guide to tax policy. if the wealth gap figures don’t improve, keep raising the taxes of tge superwealthy.