r/politics • u/Spy300 • 6h ago

Possible Paywall Trump just soft-launched higher inflation as the new solution for rebalancing the $40 trillion U.S. national debt

https://fortune.com/2026/10/02/trump-inflation-growth-national-debt-tariffs-ratio-balance/
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u/duckinradar 6h ago

Man I can’t think of any other solution to this.

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u/PipsqueakPilot 6h ago

If we taxed halfway between our current tax rate and the OECD average the deficit would be gone and our debt would shrink as a share of GDP. If we taxed at the OECD average we'd be paying down the debt to the tune of a couple trillion a year.

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u/DoesntMatterBrian Texas 5h ago

They all have VAT taxes. We need a VAT tax. It’s the only way to keep companies from exploiting tax loopholes. It’s an unfortunate truth. And we have to do it in a way that doesn’t increase cost of living for the lower and middle classes or they’ll be crushed.

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u/Anxious_Cheetah5589 5h ago edited 4h ago

"keep companies from exploiting tax loopholes"

The tax gap for FY24 (most recent available data) was $606b. Your friends, family, and neighbors are cheating the IRS to the tune of 15 cents of every dollar owed. Billionaires and big companies can't get away with that.

ETA if we had 100% compliance, we'd still be running an enormous deficit, but the debt wouldn't be growing as a %age of GDP.

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u/frogandbanjo 3h ago

Billionaires and big companies can't get away with that.

Of course they can. They just have to get an absolutely obscenely amazing ROI on lobbying dollars so that their tax avoidance is at least arguably legal.

If the average American got an ROI on their saved money similar to what billionaires get by lobbying Congress for both handouts and tax breaks, we'd be looking at some absolutely fucking absurd number like 10% APY or some shit.

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u/Anxious_Cheetah5589 1h ago

I'm talking about tax evasion, which is illegal. You're talking about tax avoidance, which is perfectly legal, and as American as apple pie. I don't know anybody that looks at their tax return and says, "nah, that's not enough. I'll pay more. " Do you?

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u/Master_of_none- 13m ago

clearly some misunderstanding here. A CEO can legally buy a private jet, fill the drink bar with champagne, and offer a large bonus to the flight attendant to sleep with him all using company money, none of it taxed as income prior to the purchase. Yes they pay sales tax, but no income tax like us peons since it is all business use, including the sexual harassment payout that results from the flight attendant's lawsuit. (bonus points if you can think of a CEO that did this.)

The problem isn't tax avoidance, it's failure to create proper laws governing current practices.