Tea Party Enraged! Taxes Avoided By Rich Could Pay Deficit!

[Symmetry]

When I reduce my income, do I cause debt?

Symmetry would have to say, "yes."

No, I would not have to say "yes". Reducing your income does not cause debt, reducing income to the point where you're spending more than you're taking in is a cause of debt.

For failing to account for the rest of my post, I am as well as others are justified in ignoring your erroneous post.

Perhaps you can blame your 5th grade teacher for your failure to understand cause-and-effect relationships?

I never had a fifth grade teacher. When I lived in the US I was in eighth grade. Bumped up two years, and three in maths. But hey, I see that even you found the rest of your post irrelevant.

[thegreekdog]

I disagree. Tax cuts don't cause debt. Failure to adjust spending to meet reduced incomes leads to the necessity of incurring debt or filing for bankruptcy/default/payment rescheduling. There's a difference between saying "tax cuts cause debt" and the previous sentence.

Besides, this whole argument from you and Symmetry makes less sense when you think about it: even without tax cuts, the government borrows money. It's been doing this since the US became a debtor nation (roughly 30 years now?)

Ignoring the mathematics/accounting portion (which some people are choosing to ignore), the government collects money by force from people to pay for things that benefit people. That's the purpose of taxation and spending (supposebbely). The government, at some point in our history, has chosen to spend more than the taxes that pay for the spending; in order to pay for the spending, the government creates indebtedness for itself. The reverse did not happen; the government didn't spend $100 a year for 50 years while taking in $100 a year for 50 years and then decide in year 51 that they would cut taxes; the government raised spending, borrowed money, and then cut taxes.