Well, since everything that has an effect will also have side-effects -- what are your suggestions for what so many believe are America's economic ills?
- Raise capital gains tax, but indexed to remove taxation
on inflation, ie, the decline in value of the dollar.
- No separate tax rates for different professions, ie, waiters
shouldn't have most of their income exempt from taxation.
I once made pizzas in a restaurant. We already were paid
much less than waiters. Why should we pay full tax on
our meager income, when they don't, eh.
- Eliminate deductions that cause more problems than
benefits, eg, homeowner deductions that distort the
market. Why subsidize them instead of renters, eh.
The inflation that everybody hated so much was the result of government throwing lifelines to millions of individuals and thousands of businesses. Inflation was the side-effect. If it had not been done, quite literally millions would have lost income, homes, property, hope.
Inflation never got that high during the period you cited.
Also, government refused to renegotiate troubled loans
in its lending arms, which comprise the largest residential
lending group in the world, eg, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.
Government could've saved many without spending a dime
if it just did what private lenders did, ie, renegotiate troubled
loans instead of foreclosing.
Would that have been better? It seems to me to be a fact that America has recovered from the financial wreckage of the pandemic better than most countries around the world, and after a not-terribly-long time, inflation is back close to normal -- and the job market didn't fall apart. That's a pretty soft landing.
It didn't have to be as bad as it was. Trump's paying people
to not work was expensive to taxpayers, & ruined businesses.
I've covered other policies that were obviously bad at the time.
Humanity's most laughable trait, when faced with calamity: "Somebody should do something," followed very closely by, "but not that!"
Or followed by doing something stupid, because
doing the wrong thing is at least doing something.
That's probably why decent leaders are so few and far between.
They're few because the selection process
favors lying panderers like Trump & Harris.
