Politics and economics

[Dill]

(08-31-2020, 01:38 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I am sure that some people will say that since the wealthiest people pay the most in taxes then it is okay for them to receive all of this benefit.  But the problem with that is that this money from the CARES act was actually not taxpayer money.  It was money borrowed by the national government.  The federal government runs a deficit every year.  They spend more than they take in.  So the federal government has become an ATM for the wealthy.  And Trump has really been swiping that credit card heavily to line to pockets of his wealthy friends.

I don't blame the pandemic on Trump, so I will not include the CARES Act or any other government spending form 2020.  But just looking at the deficit spending from Trumps first three years in office you will see that on average his deficit spending was $300 billion more per year than the last three years of the Obama administration ($809 billion to $504 billion).  Most of this is due to unfunded tax cuts to corporations and record military spending.  And BTW the biggest portions of military spending go to private companies the government contracts to develop weapons programs.  So, again, this money goes to lining the pockets of corporate shareholders.

"Wealth" isn't just money, but also material/mental resources.

I think what you are describing here is the circulation and extraction of "value."  

Transfers help put buying power in the hands of those who otherwise would not have it, keeping them alive and spending/working, and thereby keeping the ecomomy viable and producing extractable valuable--mostly for those with the means to extract it and who can save or re-invest it.

It is the latter group which mostly benefitted from the Trump tax cuts. Borrowing as you describe looks to essentially save them from losing more of that accumulated wealth via taxation.

This system should anger the vase majority as it creates a wealth "rentier" style class who can just soak in more and more wealth at the expense of people who actually produce it. But enough people will accept that disparity if voting to keep this system in place is also voting pro-life and anti-immigrant policies.