For months, the economic geniuses and budget experts at The Washington Post have worked tirelessly to come up with ways to handle our $32 trillion debt; just look at this excerpt from an article out yesterday and written by assistant editor Drew Goins:

Over the past few months, the Editorial Board has been doing what lawmakers haven't: pulling together a plan to stabilize the national debt.

Let's take a look at the proposals, starting with Social Security: 

What the board proposes is a broadening of the amount of income the Social Security tax is levied on; a gradual increase of the full retirement age to keep up with rising life expectancy; and a decrease in how much very-high-income households receive in benefits ... while increasing what low-income homes get.

They want to levy higher taxes against private employees and employers (maybe even the retirees?) to cover an unpayable debt, but they fail to suggest that the federal employees receiving the generous pensions and health care benefits pay more to support the system that rewards them the most.

They suggested cutting from the top but didn't think to cap federal pensions.  NerdWallet notes:

The maximum Social Security benefit in 2023 is $3,627 at full retirement age. It's $4,555 per month if retiring at age 70 and $2,572 if retiring at age 62.

If you do some quick math, that means Social Security benefits can range between $30,864 and $54,660 (before taxes); in comparison, when Anthony Fauci announced his impending retirement, Forbes reported that his retirement "would exceed $350,000" and adjust for cost-of-living increases.

Fauci destroyed countless lives, yet he gets a pension 900% higher than the highest Social Security recipient if they retire at age 67, yet no suggestions that he gets his pension cut, or any federal retiree.  From FOXBusiness:

A salary analysis conducted by Open The Books concluded that Fauci's first year pension payout will total $414,000 which is more than the $400,000 brought in by the president.

Next, the self-imagined prodigies tackled veterans' benefits, stating: 

Means-testing or taxing the benefits could be fruitful, and, at the very least, modernizing the rating system to save money is essential.

The WaPo determined that a good place to save would be means-testing veterans' disability benefits.  Of course, they didn't suggest means-testing the benefits extended to elected politicians, or other federal employees' with extravagant pensions and perks.  Remember when House members decided to "gift" exclusive monthly Peloton memberships to themselves and their staff?  Those eligible numbered around 12,300, but there was no mention of cutting that program.

For "defense," Goins stated:

Defense spending is one of those areas that lawmakers pour money into unquestioningly.

It appears that the journalists at WaPo haven't noticed the Chinese military buildup and that Joe Biden said our ammunition inventory has been depleted — but to be fair, they're not the most astute crowd...

And, in a grand show of predictable animosity for the peasantry...the "farmers":

Veterans tend to be doing all right, but you know who's doing amazing? Farmers.

America's farms are making plenty of food and even more money; net farm income this year is on track to hit a historically very high $137 billion.

Those darn farmers are simply making too much.  Their sacrifices to stay afloat and survive an era of Bidenomics should be penalized!  If we could just bankrupt those small farmers, elites like Bill Gates and the Chinese communists could buy the land, and we wouldn't have to deal with these country bumpkins.

The most absurd, though?  Their approach to "discretionary spending":

·  Cutting other subsidies to corporations, especially the fossil fuel industry

·  Allowing enough federal remote work to offload government property and leases

·  Shifting some Medicaid administration costs to the states

Somehow, with all the federal agencies, grants, and programs, this is all they came up with.  They think inefficient federal employees who can't keep up with tax returns and passports should work from home.  They don't appear to have noticed the damage remote work has caused to real estate values and businesses.

They want states to collect taxes to pay for Medicaid administration.

They didn't spot any government bloat where they could cut the federal workforce.

They didn't think we should enforce immigration laws, which would save billions each year. 

They didn't think we should require able-bodied people to work for welfare benefits.

They didn't think of any way to reduce the green slush funds.

Last but not least, raising taxes:

To start, up the estate tax, because nobody needs to be passing $13 million tax-free to heirs.

Many wealthy people have paid substantial income, sales, property, gas, and payroll taxes their entire lives, and many have developed businesses with many employees, but that is not enough for greedy Democrats.  As Thomas Sowell said:

I have never understood why it is 'greed' to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.

President Trump's tax rate cuts benefited everyone, including the government, because as real wages rose, government revenues went up.  Why would anyone with a brain believe that raising tax rates will raise more revenue?

As for the corporate tax: It appears that these supposedly educated people don't understand that corporations would move to lower-tax countries just as people and businesses move to lower tax states.

With regard to a carbon tax: Shouldn't the government be required to show the relationship between temperatures and the consumption of oil, natural gas, and coal before they impose a regressive tax to pretend they can control the climate?

Basically, the WaPo journalists and other Democrats love big government, and their "solutions" to a massive spending problem are nothing more than an escalation of gouging the producers to temporarily slow the bleed...but it still doesn't address the unsustainable trajectory.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.