Can Bill Gates pay off our national debt?
Miss Kim...Not that loaded.
Could the U.S. sell Alaska to pay off the national debt?
No. Alaska is one of the 50 states and is protected by Federal Laws. Besides, people own their own land, (privately-owned land) and the U.S. Government cannot sell what is not theirs. Besides, the government would never give up the natural resources.. Read that as OIL. Lol...imagine getting a letter in the mail... Please send all future property tax payments to your new government, North Korea... There goes the neighborhood...
The federal government never has to pay off the national debt.?
It's true. We have never actually even reduced the debt, that I know of. But we look at debt as a percentage of GDP, and as GDP grows, debt shrinks in relationship. Ronald Reagan made a big deal of the debt when he was running for president. He said no country could be strong that had a debt as big as ours, in those days less than a trillion dollars. But in his two terms he tripled the entire pre-existing national debt, saying the way to reduce the debt was to grow out of it rather than pay it off. I think it's really hypocritical for the Republicans to whine about the debt these days since $12 trillion of our $16 trillion debt came under only the last three Republican presidents, the very ones who promised that balancing the budget would be their first priority. President Clinton actually had a plan to pay off the entire debt by 2009. If Al Gore had won in 2000, we might have seen much of the debt paid off. But when GW Bush came to office, he simply could not wait to undo all the good work Clinton had done. With a big tax cut for gazillionares, what else?
Impractically, what would it take to pay off the U.S. national debt?
I’m not sure what you mean by “impractically.” There are lots of impractical ways of doing it.In round figures, the on-balance sheet federal debt is $20 trillion. The federal government collects $3.6 trillion in revenue and spends $4.0 trillion. So a straightforward way to pay off the debt would be to increase taxes 20% and cut spending 20% to run a $1 trillion surplus. That would pay off the nominal debt in about 15 years, depending on economic growth and interest rates. It’s less than 20 years, because I assume the surplus grows with the economy and the saved interest expense from paydowns is used to further pay down the debt.Unfortunately, this would do little to close the total fiscal gap, which includes unfunded pensions and entitlements, contingent liabilities and state and local debts. Moreover, I don’t think it’s possible politically anytime soon.If the nominal debt were the entire debt, then there would be no strong economic reason to pay it all off. It would suffice to demonstrate the the government can control its spending as it briefly appeared able to do at the end of the 1990s.The really important thing is not debt, taxes or spending. It’s how much the government tries to do. Regulations can accomplish the same things as taxing and spending. For example, if the government decides to discourage use of incandescent light bulbs, it could tax incandescent bulbs (tax), subsidize alternatives (spend) or just pass a regulation (no fiscal impact). Those are all basically the same things. What matters isn’t which of the three strategies the government picks, it’s that the government has decided to choose lightbulbs for people.So I don’t like debt because it encourages the government to do too much, not because it’s unsustainable economically. The government runs 20% of the economy directly, and controls about another 30% through regulation. I’d like to see those numbers shrink a lot.
How time would it take to pay off the US's national debt if marijuana were legalized and taxed?
I'm guessing it would take hundreds of years. Cigarettes, which are far more popular than weed, brought in only about $34 Billion in taxes in 2007. Even if we taxed the hell out of marijuana, far more then cigarettes, i can't imagine it bringing in more then the $34 Billion per year. We owe something like 11 Trillion Dollars. That's 325 years. And that also assumes that we instantly start balancing the budget from now on.
How will cutting taxes pay off the national debt?
GOPer As you cons are fond of pointing out, unemployment is presently less than 4.5%. What room is there for more employment and thus more taxes? You will not significantly increase the size of the work force and, under your plan, you have the total work force paying less in taxes to the feds. I understand that we need deep spending cuts. But, we also need increased revenues. Where exactly does that come from if personal income taxs are cut?
Why can't Bill Gates pay off our national debt?
I NO WRITE?
How much money, per person, would it take to pay off our National Debt?
The question implies a false assumption, insinuating all Americans owe the same amount toward our debt, and that each of us is equally responsible for it’s cause, both assumptions are patently false.The debt burden is differing for each of us.We’re all partners in this economy, some of us have a greater share of that partnership, those with the greater share, in any reasonable partnership, would be responsible for a greater share of the debt;Here’s the example with breakdown;You and I are partners, I own 90 percent of the company along with those assets, you own 10 percent.If we took in 1000 dollars, I’d obviously get 900 dollars, you’d get 100.Equally, if instead of profit we run a deficit, the outstanding bill comes to 1000 dollars;You aren’t responsible for an equal share of the bills, as 10 percent partner you’d only be responsible for 100 dollars of that outstanding bill, as 90 percent partner I’d obviously be responsible for 900 dollars.It’s the same thing in an economy.In this country right now, 1-percent of the population owns 40 percent of the economic assets.In a balanced partnership, that 1 percent would be paying 40 percent of the bill.So;If there are 100 partners, 1 person owns 40 percent of that business, the other 99 owns 60 percent, for this argument and simplicity, we’ll give them equal shares.That one person would owe 400 dollars of the debt all by himself, the other 99 people would split the 600 dollars remaining between them, they’d only owe somewhere around 7 dollars each.We can take that even further, today’s debt is the result of those “tax cuts for the wealthy” which were supposed to pay for themselves.Unsurprisingly, they didn’t, (shocking I tell you!)Those “tax cuts for the wealthy” reduced job investment, reduced middle class spending, reduced infrastructure investment (along with those well paying jobs), and put your hard earned money in the pockets of people so wealthy they can never ever spend it.You’re left footing the bill, which manifests as low return on your retirement, weaker and aging infrastructure and the debt they created.The debt would drop to 52 percent of GDP if the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were allowed to expire as they were designed.If you really want to pay the debt by charging those who caused the problem, rescind those malignant “tax cuts for the wealthy”That would do the trick pronto.