Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by n1 on Thursday June 08 2017, @08:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the other-people's-money dept.

The Republican-controlled house and senates of Kansas voted to increase taxes and to override the governor's veto of a bill to increase taxes.

The current governor pushed through tax cuts, intended to grow Kansas' economy, but during the tax cuts, Kansas' growth was lower than the country's overall growth.

The increase follows years in which the state was unable to balance its budget, and the funding for education was found to be unconstitutionally low.

In my view, state budgets are likely to take a hit from Trump's stealth tax increase: by reducing funding for programs and forcing the states to step in, the states will have to find extra money to fill the gaps.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:49PM (3 children)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:49PM (#522599)

    From a quick search it looks like the national debt is around GDP anyway, so one could argue we're already bankrupt...

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:52PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:52PM (#522737)

    Doesn't matter that much as long as:
    1) The debts are in a currency the USA can create
    2) Most other countries continue to use that same currency to trade and hold large amounts of it.

    e.g. it doesn't matter as long as the USA can be a Mugabe and the rest of the world lives in the USA's Zimbabwe. The USA prints money (aka Quantitative Easing etc) and everyone else with/owed US dollars gets poorer.

    Not the same as you owing the bank in currency you can't create or control.

    The real problem for the average US citizen is less and less of the USA's created money is going to help them and more of it is going to help others.

    By the way where does the DoD get those trillions from and where is it really going: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG [reuters.com]

    6.5 trillion per year... For comparison the total US household debt is about 13 trillion.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:00PM

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:00PM (#522787) Journal

      Doesn't matter that much as long as:
      1) The debts are in a currency the USA can create
      2) Most other countries continue to use that same currency to trade and hold large amounts of it.

      This is insightful, but it's important to note it only applies to governments that control their own sovereign debt. It doesn't, for example, apply to Kansas, which could actually go bankrupt in a meaningful way, because Kansas doesn't control the creation of dollars.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 09 2017, @11:55AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 09 2017, @11:55AM (#523011) Journal

      2) Most other countries continue to use that same currency to trade and hold large amounts of it.

      If the US massively inflates its currency, 2) stops happening. So the US is significantly limited to what money creation it can do (basically what the export-oriented countries like China and Japan are willing to sop up).

      6.5 trillion per year...

      No, that's over the life of the military service. I'm sure the accountants gave up after a few decades, but it's not all generated in a single year else we would have far more epic problems. Further, this is just typical government accounting (and probably done in large part to hide funding to intelligence projects throughout the government, hence, unlikely to ever stop). There is no branch of the US government that would do better and the entitlement programs hide worse problems IMHO.