Reuters article talks additional COVID PSP...
 

The government printing another 1.9 trillion dollars. What could possibly go wrong?!? 🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

This is great news for many Flight Attendants, Ramp workers and other professions which have seen and would have otherwise seen massive layoffs. As for the overall price of the package it makes for easy simple minded attacks to say "we spending too much" but I've yet to see one realistic solution to either the spending issues of our government or the tax code from either party.

Every single financial guru and expert out there agrees the cost of doing too little or nothing during this current economic crunch is very high, versus the cost of aiming too high is negligible.

For those who complain about government spending I almost always find you want strong national defense (that doesn't come cheap and guess what its getting more expensive (in fact pilots are still leaving the service at record pace right now even with airline hiring almost nonexistent) . Almost no one [a big majority] in this country has actually saved enough for retirement or is not on track to in order to not need a significant amount of their social security. And every one of my conservative parents and parent in laws are absolutely reliant on Medicare. Between those 3 alone which are insanely popular you have the vast majority of government spending. Every thing else people complain about (foreign aid, culture programs, UN funding, you name it) even if combined together would not make an appreciable dent in our deficit or long term debt.

So that leaves you with one answer, if your costs/spending are fix'd (which SS, Medicare, Defense basically are) your left with Taxes. There is no free lunch, so pay your damned taxes and support meaningful tax reform that will actually INCREASE government revenue (flat tax fails miserably at that btw.)

The only meaningful tax reform is the fair tax.

If you get people dependent on “free” pension and “free” medical care, they will become more dependent.

I’m all for cutting EVERYTHING 1% every year until we spend less than we tax. But even that modest plan is too radical for most in congress.

Oh well, we will have to continue status quo until something bad happens.

You are in a very small minority that actually believe in cutting Social Security or Medicare. An even smaller minority once you are actively collecting. Posturing is cool and all, but I prefer to be realistic. These programs are not going any where soon, and the sooner we accept that reality the sooner we can better tackle deficit and debt.

Why would anyone want to cut Social Security or Medicare? There is nothing to tackle with the federal debt, it's fiat money created exclusively by the federal government. If there was no federal debt there would be no private savings.

Could you clarify your point here? Clearly other countries are purchasing our debt because it’s backed by the full faith and credit of the US which is built on nothing more than reputation (reputation built over 250 years). We had private savings on the gold standard before we changed standards. What exactly is your point?

The reality is that no other programs can be developed because these programs are unduly expensive. If this is what folks want their money to fund, then so be it. Just know that they are preventing the federal from taking on new challenges (Medicare for All, “Free” College) And no...endless new taxes are not the answer. It’s difficult enough planning for retirement with the unknowns of how my retirement choices made today could be upended by changing how my Roth is taxed in the future. They’ve already moved the goal posts for passing on my 401(k) to my kids through the SECURE Act this past year.

Please elaborate.

Look up something called the “Stretch IRA” or “Stretch 401(k)” for more information.

Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:
Prior to last year, an inherited IRA could be passed on to an heir and the RMDs would then be based on the recipient’s life expectancy. The SECURE Act changed the time period for RMDs from life expectancy to ten years. Now the inherited IRA must be withdrawn in 10 years so Uncle Sam gets his take sooner. This means if you passed on $2M to your kid, they take out $200,000 per year which puts them in a higher tax bracket for the duration of their withdrawals rather than if they just took out maybe $40,000 per year starting in their 30’s. It effectively transfers a large portion of your kid’s inheritance to the government and they have to transfer the remainder to a taxable account after the ten years is up.


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