Before class on Tuesday, 11/16
Watch (13:51): Kelton (2021)
Read: Lu (2020)
Read: Lumen Learning: “Taxation”
In class on Friday, 11/19
Question Building 2 In Class
Material Links
Kelton, Stephanie. (2021). “The big myth of government deficits.” TEDMonterey. https://www.ted.com/talks/stephanie_kelton_the_big_myth_of_government_deficits
Lu, Marcus. (2020, October 30). “Charting America’s Debt: $27 Trillion and Counting.” Visual Capitalist. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/americas-debt-27-trillion-and-counting/
Lumen Learning: from Module 11: “Taxation” https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-macroeconomics/chapter/reading-taxation/
• The author talked about how government budgets are different to our household budgets. Can congress make this happen?
• During the pandemic the government gave relief funds and extended healthcare benefits to all those who needed it. The government started distributing money among Americans without raising taxes so why did they do this? To stimulate the economy to make sure money was flowing through businesses who needed it. But the government can only do these things by taxpayer money. I do side with the decision the government made.
2. This reminded me of my current situation as for 2 years I have had to pay off my debt and this includes tax pay back, because of how much a self-employed individuals have more taxes to pay. This keeps me in a loop of debt if I just be smart and could flip that narrative only if we had more benefits to set off the amount of taxes, we must pay out of pocket just to stay in business.
3. The part of the government spending each year gets distributed into different sectors, that is why we have scholarships for those individuals who need to become physicians for example, because we lack those in the country, and this seems to work.
4. My favorite part is when she says, “Back in 1983, the prime minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher, said these words: “If the state wishes to spend more, it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more, and it is no good thinking that someone else will pay. That someone else is you. There is no such thing as public money. There is only taxpayers’ money.”
Least favorite part is when she says “becomes clear that every deficit is good for someone. The question is for whom and what are those deficits being used to accomplish?”
I feel that the government spending goes to unnecessary stuff at times.