The threat on the table with respect to the debt ceiling is default on the national debt.
There's no need to default on the national debt.
Let's say your credit card company calls and says they're freezing your card and you can't spend more money on credit. What happens then? Well, you can decide you're going to default and not pay your bills, but for me, that happened, and what I did wasn't defaulting, I cut my phone, I cut my Internet, I cut my food bill, and then I was able to make my critical payments and pay my debts.
There's no need to default on the national debt.
Let's say your credit card company calls and says they're freezing your card and you can't spend more money on credit. What happens then? Well, you can decide you're going to default and not pay your bills, but for me, that happened, and what I did wasn't defaulting, I cut my phone, I cut my Internet, I cut my food bill, and then I was able to make my critical payments and pay my debts.
Unfortunately, that's the thing with debt: it feels great when you're racking it up but feels like shit when you're paying for it.
The most evil thing is when people go "so it'll hurt so let's never balance the budget or pay down the debt ever". Because there's no such thing as never in this case. If we don't do it, our kids will have to do it, or our kids kids. This is why I call going into debt the way we do "selling our kids into slavery", because they have to work and suffer because we refuse to.
Whether we like it or not, when dealing with deficits as large as any given western country operates under, it is a requirement that not only should the spending be cut, but also that taxes rise. People don't want to pay higher taxes (I sure don't), but it's the consequence of excess government spending.
The most effective way to implement a tax immediately that would bring in the sort of revenue required that wouldn't be immediately dodged would be a sales tax. You could exempt many basics such as groceries, rent/homes, and bills for personal consumption, but leave it for everything else. In that way you can try to limit the immediate impact on people's essentials despite it being a broad tax. Such taxes do bring in massive revenue, which is good because that's what's required to get back to 0.
The most evil thing is when people go "so it'll hurt so let's never balance the budget or pay down the debt ever". Because there's no such thing as never in this case. If we don't do it, our kids will have to do it, or our kids kids. This is why I call going into debt the way we do "selling our kids into slavery", because they have to work and suffer because we refuse to.
Whether we like it or not, when dealing with deficits as large as any given western country operates under, it is a requirement that not only should the spending be cut, but also that taxes rise. People don't want to pay higher taxes (I sure don't), but it's the consequence of excess government spending.
The most effective way to implement a tax immediately that would bring in the sort of revenue required that wouldn't be immediately dodged would be a sales tax. You could exempt many basics such as groceries, rent/homes, and bills for personal consumption, but leave it for everything else. In that way you can try to limit the immediate impact on people's essentials despite it being a broad tax. Such taxes do bring in massive revenue, which is good because that's what's required to get back to 0.
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