Just the other day, Donald Trump held his first official cabinet meeting. For reasons that are unclear, Elon Musk was present. Musk explained that drastic cuts in government were necessary to prevent the government from going “bankrupt.”
In order to understand what this nonsense really means, we have to go back and look at the tax cuts that George Bush implemented in 2001 and again in 2003. We were told we had more than enough money for his tax cuts. That turned out to be untrue. The tax cuts did not generate any of the economic growth that would have been required to offset the cuts.
Now the time has passed, we can look back and see how much these tax cuts actually cost us. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Bush Tax Cuts cost us $4 trillion.
We have learned from Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts that they rarely pay for themselves. Instead, Republican tax cuts work by cutting benefits for poor and middle-class families and giving those benefits—money—to the upper 10%. In fact, most of the benefits go only to the very wealthiest families, the obscenely wealthy upper 1%.
In 2017, Donald Trump and the Republicans passed another large tax cut. As usual, the benefits went disproportionately to the rich and superrich. According to the Congressional Budget Office, these tax cuts will cost Americans $1.9 trillion over a decade.
Now, you do not have to be a mathematician to be able to figure this out. It seems that if we stop giving away tax cuts, and reverse the huge money transfers we have made over the last 20 years, we will have fixed our budget shortfall. And therefore, we are not bankrupt, and we won’t be.
Musk and Trump are also telling the American people that the government is “too big.” We have to reduce its size. Really? This is a graph of all federal employees since 1980. Please note that employment spikes every ten years as we conduct the census.
According to our data, the federal government has been approximately the same size since 1980. During this same time, our population grew by 46.7% from 227 million to over 333 million. Our government is smaller than ever now: over those 40 years, it has become much smaller as a percentage of our overall population.
Don’t tell me the government is too big. That’s nonsense.
Dr. Thompson is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives.
Too Disgusting
Just the other day, Donald Trump held his first official cabinet meeting. For reasons that are unclear, Elon Musk was present. Musk explained that drastic cuts in government were necessary to prevent the government from going “bankrupt.”
In order to understand what this nonsense really means, we have to go back and look at the tax cuts that George Bush implemented in 2001 and again in 2003. We were told we had more than enough money for his tax cuts. That turned out to be untrue. The tax cuts did not generate any of the economic growth that would have been required to offset the cuts.
Now the time has passed, we can look back and see how much these tax cuts actually cost us. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Bush Tax Cuts cost us $4 trillion.
We have learned from Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts that they rarely pay for themselves. Instead, Republican tax cuts work by cutting benefits for poor and middle-class families and giving those benefits—money—to the upper 10%. In fact, most of the benefits go only to the very wealthiest families, the obscenely wealthy upper 1%.
In 2017, Donald Trump and the Republicans passed another large tax cut. As usual, the benefits went disproportionately to the rich and superrich. According to the Congressional Budget Office, these tax cuts will cost Americans $1.9 trillion over a decade.
Now, you do not have to be a mathematician to be able to figure this out. It seems that if we stop giving away tax cuts, and reverse the huge money transfers we have made over the last 20 years, we will have fixed our budget shortfall. And therefore, we are not bankrupt, and we won’t be.
Musk and Trump are also telling the American people that the government is “too big.” We have to reduce its size. Really? This is a graph of all federal employees since 1980. Please note that employment spikes every ten years as we conduct the census.
According to our data, the federal government has been approximately the same size since 1980. During this same time, our population grew by 46.7% from 227 million to over 333 million. Our government is smaller than ever now: over those 40 years, it has become much smaller as a percentage of our overall population.
Don’t tell me the government is too big. That’s nonsense.
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ABOUT AUTHOR
Errington C. Thompson, MD
Dr. Thompson is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives.
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A Letter to America
The Thirteeneth Juror
Where is The Outrage Topics
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