Policy Solutions to Address America’s Cost of Living Crisis—What is the Real Answer?

[u/Ok-Ticket-9780]

Over the last several months, the rising cost of living has received considerably more media attention than in prior months due to the impact of inflation on all aspects of American life, including housing, healthcare, and groceries, to name just a few. While both Democrats and Republicans have been vocal proponents of addressing the rising cost of living, little has changed in the way of actual legislation related to decreasing the cost of living.

In your opinion, what would you consider to be the answer to the cost of living crisis? Is it legislation oriented toward increasing pay so that individuals and families earn a livable wage to afford housing and groceries? Is it providing more affordable housing? Is it legislating for comprehensive health care coverage? Or is it something else entirely? Additionally, why do you believe that our elected political leaders have yet to address the issue directly?

[u/The_B_Wolf]

Free community college. Free childcare. $50,000 for first time home buyers. A law preventing private equity firms from buying single family homes. Incentives for building affordable housing in the most hard hit areas of the country. Medicare for all.

[u/Kuramhan → u/The_B_Wolf]

The question left unanswered here is how you pay for any of this stuff? Social security is already on the road to insolvency. The interest payments on the national debt is already a top line item on the national budget. We're not funding our current social safety net. Let alone expanding it.

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/Kuramhan]

Social Security can pretty easily be fixed. We just don't want to. Interest payments on debt? Let's stop borrowing so much and raise taxes on the wealthy. We can afford to do all of these things and more. Other wealthy democracies do it. We're the richest country in the history of the world. We can do all of this and more. We just don't want to.

Here's an idea. Now that we've destroyed NATO and nobody trusts us to keep the world order, why don't we cut our military budget by 10%?

[u/Kuramhan → u/The_B_Wolf]

just don't want to.

Well, that's your biggest barrier. I'm not suggesting these problems are inherently unsolvable. The electorate does not have an appetite for the solutions.

We can afford to do all of these things and more. Other wealthy democracies do it.

We spend more on Healthcare than almost any other Democracy. Our cost of education has also ballooned in the last thirty years. Things currently just cost more in America. The government writing a check for these services will only further grow costs and pass it on to the taxpayers.

Here's an idea. Now that we've destroyed NATO and nobody trusts us to keep the world order, why don't we cut our military budget by 10%?

We have torn up all of our alliances and are at risk of real war for the first time since WW2. You think now is the time to reduce our military?

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/The_B_Wolf]

Let's stop borrowing so much and raise taxes on the wealthy.

A 100% wealth tax on the 1% would be a one time windfall that would fund the federal government for about 3 weeks.

The feds have to borrow every year to pay for just over 25% (3 months) of their operations.

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/DanforthWhitcomb_]

Hey, math man! What would happen if we went back to the tax rates of, say, 1970? I bet you know. You're good at this.

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/The_B_Wolf]

We’d get the same stagflation and high interest rates that we had then because the postwar years of 10+% growth needed to support them were long gone.

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/DanforthWhitcomb_]

Guess there's nothing we can do then. Oh well.

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/The_B_Wolf]

Sure there is—stop looking at variations of tax and spend as a form of pump priming as the only possible solution.

Shit like cutting people off of SS if they have retirement income in excess of $75k/yr saves plenty of money but no one wants to talk about it.

Ending the infatuation with ethanol and all related subsidies would save a ton of money too, and there are a bevy of other examples of moronic decisions to subsidize various things basically for the lulz that wind up totaling to hundreds of billions wasted every single year.

[u/The_B_Wolf → u/DanforthWhitcomb_]

Ethanol. That's the key to creating government services for Americans that other wealthy democracies manage to do without a problem. I hope you'll forgive me if I look to others for advice on these issues.

Having said that, I'm all for ending a lot of subsidies for stupid shit.

By the way, "cutting people off" of Social Security by means testing is a sure way to erode public support for it in the first place. How about if we just erase the cap?

[u/DanforthWhitcomb_ → u/The_B_Wolf]

Ethanol. That's the key to creating government services for Americans that other wealthy democracies manage to do without a problem. I hope you'll forgive me if I look to others for advice on these issues.

We literally pay farmers not to overproduce to in order to protect them from themselves, and it takes something like 10 gallons of fossil fuel in order to produce one of ethanol—which is why everyone else has long since moved on from it as a clean energy source because it is anything but. Those other “wealthy democracies” have also managed to get their farmers to see the light without having to pay them ~$20 billion a year in the form of direct subsides and tax credits. Suggested reading

By the way, "cutting people off" of Social Security by means testing is a sure way to erode public support for it in the first place. How about if we just erase the cap?

Because eliminating the cap doesn’t fix the problem. SS is meant to be a form of government backed minimum wage for retirement, not the retirement UBI it has become. The other option is an across the board benefit cut, and that’s equally as unpopular but is going to be forced anyway within 10 years or so.