US ECONOMY Flashcards
What percentage of U.S spending is in services?
70% of all U.S spending is on services.
When the treasury sells bonds, what percentage of these bonds are owned by Americans?
35.6% are owned by americans, this is made up of private investors, banks, american companies. State and local governments, pensions, keep their money in bonds. The largest percentage of these bonds is woned by the federal government (39%). The money for social security is actually kept in bonds. So is the money for Medicare adn federal pensions. The federal reserve owns bonds too.
Oct 27, 2021, what is the latest big news regarding Biden’s spending package?
Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore) has revealed a tax plan to tax the capital gains of the super rich. This tax would impact about 700 people who earn more than 1 billion per year and earn over 100 million every month for a period of three months. It is sadly unlikely to pass, as House Democrats are already balking at it and the Court will surely challenge it.
Why would the Siupremem Court be able to challenge this proposed bill?
The Constitution restricts so-called “direct taxes” which means a tax which is exclusively applied to someone and nobody else. Theres a big exception for income taxes thanks to the 16th ammendment, which allows Congress to tax earnings. The question is whether this falls under income or direct tax
After the initial Build Back Better plan was cut more than half to 1.75 billion from initial 3.5 billion, what is a difficulty that will be faced financing this program regarding taxation?
Kristen Sinema (Ar), opposing corporate and individual taxes, will have to accept the surtax on people earning millions of dollars and a minimum tax of 15% on U.S corporations who avoid paying taxes through creative accounting.
Following the difficulties of finding a partisan way of funding BBB, what is another funding challenge which may bring representatives back to the drawing board?
University of Pennsylvania Wharton concluded that BBB would only bring $1.5 trillion in returns, an estimate $500 billion under White House estimates. The Joint Committee on Taxation is also saying that underfunding may force democrats to reconsider.
If Biden’s 5 year tuition free (two year) community college plan (109 billion initiative) passed, would there be significant economic returns?
According to the Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce, if this plan were implemented and expanded to a decade, it would have produced $160 billion gained in real GDP and $66 billion in new tax revenue.
Ehat has happened to private university costs in the past 20 years (2002-2021)? What about community colleges?
We wnt from the average private school costing 20k in 2000 to 40k in 2018, and the trend has likely continued so we may safeñy guess 50k in 2021. This is all while funding declines, as it declined by 3.4 billion in 2019. Community college tution costs increased by 37.5% between 2008 and 2019.
In the current bill in front of congress, what has been included which will help college students?
An increase of $550 for the maximum pell grant and expanded access to Dreamers
