The federal deficit is The amount by which the government’s total budget outlays exceeds its total receipts for a fiscal year. In 2018 the federal deficit was $779 billion. But the gross federal debt increased by $1250 billion. The Major peaks of the federal deficit in the 20th century occurred during World War I and World War II. Another point in which the deficit peaked was with the market crash in 2008, where a lot of governmental money was put back in to restart the economy, mainly by bailouts for banks.
The U.S. Treasury divides all federal spending into three groups, mandatory spending, discretionary spending, and interest on debt. Mandatory and discretionary spending account for the majority of federal spending. In 2015 the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), stated that mandatory spending totaled in 2.45 trillion dollars and made up 64.6% of spending. Discretionary totaled in 1.11 trillion dollars and made up 29.34%. The smallest was interest on the federal debt, which 229.15 billion was spent on, only a small amount in comparison to the rest was spent about 6.03%. Discretionary Spending in 2015, of 1.11 trillion, the majority was spent on military, the rest included, government, eduction, healthcare, military benefits, housing, international affairs, energy, science, agriculture, and transportation. The Mandatory Spending was mainly spent by Social Security, Unemployment and Labor, and medicare and health. The rest was spent on food, veterans benefits, and transportation. In most circumstances the citizens directly are benefited, wether someone receives lower health bill, or are helped to find a job, and in the time they have lost a job and are actively looking for employment, they receive money similar to what they were earning. Public schools are funded by the government. Other than military spending and debt interest, the majority is in someway returned to the citizens.
the main source of the governments income is taxes. In 2017 based on information the OMB released about 48% of federal revenue comes from income taxes, 9% from corporate income taxes, and 35% from payroll taxes. The taxes on corporations are surprisingly low, but for a good reason, it incentives companies to stay. It stimulates the economy and helps keep jobs at home rather than overseas. This means they can collect more income tax. The government should balance their budget. Without a balanced budget the federal deficit will continue to grow, weakening the ability to borrow money and to back their own currency. More and more pressure will rise to cut social programs. On the other side is that over time is deficit can provide stimulus which creates economic growth that can pay off the debt in the long run. A small amount of debt can be eroded over time if inflation is higher than the interest rate although this policy is not great because as we’ve seen in Germany post WWII and the value of the Mark dropping to practically worthless. If the debt were to be almost at zero, this is when the benefits of a balanced budget would be expressed.
I believe that the only funding that should be cut would be military. Decreasing it would allow more benefit that impact the community. Countless times the United States has done military actions which were unnecessary and resulted in an increase in spending. Optimizing the amount spent would open more opportunities to fund more scientific projects which could positively impact the people.
One method which would be highly effective to the decrease in deficit would be to cut spending and raise taxes. For example Sweden was close to financial ruin by 1994, but by reworking the budget and making it balanced along with foreign help from the US they were able to recover. If something similar were to happen to the US it would allow for the implementation of a balanced budget.
Prompt 3
The nature of presidential campaigns in the United States since the 1960s. Has evolved significantly. Examples of the changes are the amount of money spent and advertisement tactics.
Recent campaigns have become much more expensive, and the means of how parties get the funds has been all the more shady.
Based on statistics provided by the New York Magazine, Federal Election Commission, campaign spending has increased. With Nixon in 1960 spending 10.1 million dollars and in 2016 Obama spent over 760 million dollars. These number are quite a large gap and makes you wonder why has it increased so much. The issue is at first glance some of the comparisons do not take into account inflation in 1960 the value of the dollar was much higher compared to today. Another issue is income growth, and population increase. Income growth means that more people are able to donate to the party they support. Once these are factored into a surprising result is shown, campaign spending has fluctuated and is only recently on an upward path. In 1960 funding was around 300 million, a peak was reached in 1972, with Nixon. Campaign spending totaled around 800 million. After this spending lowered to under 400 million dollars up until Bush in 2000 which is where it began to grow and has continued on an upward path since then. These numbers don’t account for super pacs which provide even more funds for the parties.
Super pacs are a type of independent political action committee which may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, and individuals but is not permitted to contribute to or coordinate directly with parties or candidates. Corporations donate a large number of funds to parties. The giving of money forces the Supreme Court to push for candidates that follow corporation agendas, and in the process attacking other candidates.
Advertisement tactics for campaigning have also changed. The methods of broadcasting are one of them by using commercials and internet ads. Prior radio would have been the preferred method. Over time it changed to television and recently the internet. They keep on adapting to be able to expand the amount of people that see the ads and are then more likely to vote for the candidate. Another thing that has changed is that advertisements have become more focused on drawing attention to a name over informing the public about a candidate's opinions and beliefs. Candidates choose to shoot down the other candidate and make them seem bad instead of building themselves up. The way they do this can often be false and irrelevant to the qualification of the other candidate. Because of this campaigning behavior, voters know why both candidates should not be voted for, but do not know why one should be voted for. It becomes a vote for which can do less of a bad job rather than who can do a better job. These smear campaigns have devalued the candidates positions and practices like this could lead to less individuals running for fears that their reputation could be slandered.
Todays campaigns have become aggressive in efforts to push agendas. Corporations have overpowered the votes of citizens and essentially congress has been favoring money over the people. This shouldn’t be and a cap should be set to how much a party can except. If this continues over time the issue will get worse because companies fund campaigns which may not be what the people want.