Debt is debt though - you can say the grounding economy was a factor, but the debt still is a debt. Why is not an issue, there was a choice to really tighten down and weather it, or spending and increase it. Even if Krugman says Debt is Good.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/.../pau...e-economy.html
The problem is one of competing theories, and the answer came from Obama's own adviser, Christina Romer.
http://www.nber.org/digest/mar08/w13264.html
The long and short is every increase in tax dollars results in a decrease of the total GDP. For every tax dollar you take out, you remove 3 from the GDP.
Increases in Tax only increases windfalls in the
short term, but result in long term reduction in the GDP. Where as reduction of taxes results in short term falls, but long term increases. While it looks like a short term reduction in income, in the 3 previous large tax reductions (1920, JFK, Reagan) the result has always a long term increase in taxes.
https://www.heritage.org/taxes/repor...nges-tax-rates
The problem is spending. Not in revenue collection or tax rates. The US just received the largest amount of taxes ever on record. But the shortfall is still large. Why is it large?
We are spending too much. The biggest flaw in Trump is not his tax plan. It makes sense over the long run. He is just making the same mistake as Reagan. The problem with Reagan is that during the recovery from his tax cuts is they increased the spending, anticipating the higher returns. And they got those returns. Trump seems like he will also.
During the SoTU? Big spending, across the board.
I think the tax cuts are great and will do a lot, long term, to increase the GDP and help the country out. But if they don't take on spending, it will be all for naught. So we will see. The biggest problem is congress is in control of other people's money. They are not spending theirs. It is like any household not on a budget. They spend more than they have, run up debt, and figure they will pay it later. Well, even at Obama's level, we were slated for the debt to expand to 20% of the budget by 2030. Blaming either party isn't an issue. It is really down to us, deciding we need them to reign in spending.
A few charts to look at:
https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/past_spending
As you can see, the budget problem is mostly healthcare. It is our biggest line item in our national budget, covering 25% of it in total at the moment. Full US spending is almost $3.6B.
In fact, here is the kicker:
http://www.kenflerlage.com/2016/09/i...al-budget.html
Breaking down by president, GWB had the largest increase in spending. I would be fine if we could reign it down to Clinton budget levels. Adjusted for inflation, against the 2016 budget of $4T, the Clinton budget would be $2.5T. While tax revenue did also increase, it didn't keep up with the spending.
As cap: Raising taxes only increases revenue short term. Raising taxes hurts long term growth. Spending is the problem. GWB didn't do anything about it, he was the worst offender, and BHO wasn't any better at fixing the problem, nor stimulating the economy with GWB's bad ARRA. They both are bad at the economy and budget, no matter what olive branches might have been handed out or party to blame.