*=> 230530 <=* National Debt Crisis Season

It’s hilarious how when Republicans have the presidency, the rich get to keep more dollars, the middle class keep their cents and the poor just keep dragging the economy down. When the Democrats have the presidency, decreasing our national debt is THE TOP Republican priority. Of course, the poor keep dragging the economy down. That is by definition, so there is no need to discuss how to reduce the number of poor, that would eliminate a favorite whipping boy of the Trumplicans.

Our national debt is an extremely important issue because the greater the debt, the more our tax money goes to paying interest on the debt and the less is available for other items like social security, the military, education, maintenance of our infrastructure, clean water, scientific research and a few thousand other items.

There are several ways that the national debt could be actually reduced. You could improve our economy. More people would have jobs and pay taxes. Republicans generally favor allowing corporations to keep more of their money to improved production thus needing to hire more people. This is a great plan except that it doesn’t work. The people owning corporate stock want more dividends and stockholders rule in America. The US has repeatedly tried this plan and gotten the same results and the poor keep dragging down the economy.

This may sound crazy, almost Communist, but if America returned to an actual graduated income tax the rich might actually pay more taxes. Currently the heads of corporations may only earn a few million per year, but they may use corporate property for business purposes like talking with friends and relatives. Use of corporate jets, yachts and cars at no cost is a business activity. Trips overseas with guests purely for improving commercial contacts is nice. And please don’t forget the traditional business lunches.

Tax fraud costs our government many billions of dollars per year. With the IRS finally buying modern computers and using software less than 20 years old, much of the tax fraud will be discovered and prosecuted. I wonder why Trumplicans are opposed to that?

Since this is national debt crisis season, lets look at national debt rate increase per party

Here is a chart of national debt per president which gives a rough picture of what each president did to increase our debt. I’ve included several web sites to allow for an easy comparison with the chart below.

Debt is presented as a percentage increase rather than a dollar amount as a way of accounting for inflation. The percentage increase per year is used so that 8 year terms are fairly compared to shorter terms.