The Dan Bongino Show - The Bongino Brief - Feb 27, 2021

Episode Date: February 27, 2021

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Dan Bongino. Welcome to the Bongino Brief. I'm Dan Bongino. This is our Economics for Liberals section. You know, you got to go slow with them. You know, these people who think we can just run up government debt forever. And to be fair, that's a lot of spendthrift Republicans, too. I called out the debt in the Trump presidency, too.

So no one's going to claim I'm a hypocrite on this. We are running up debt levels never seen, I mean, literally never seen in human history. Forbes has a really fascinating article I've been trying to get to all week. It is up in the show notes today, and I encourage you to read it. Go to Bongito.com slash newsletter, please, to see it. It's about five consequences of the massive government debt we are running up, unprecedented in human history. Literally, the article's called Five Consequences of U.S. Debt at Near 50 Trillion.

This was from 2020, October. We haven't even spent the 1.9 trillion. We haven't even passed it yet. John Malden, senior contributor. Here's just a couple. You may be saying to yourself, ah, don't worry. I'm a liberal. I'm the liberal college kid in the dorm room.

We can just tax our way out of this. Really? Because here's a quote from the Forbes piece. Even if we double taxes on the top 25%, you know those evil rich people you keep talking about? we can just tax our way out of this. Really? Because here's a quote from the Forbes piece. Even if we double taxes on the top 25%, you know, those evil rich people you keep talking about, it would only bring in another 1.3 trillion. And that's assuming people don't change their behavior. A 75% marginal rate plus 4% Medicare for a 79% top tax rate certainly will change behavior. A less shocking 20 to 25% increase would only bring in about 3 billion to 400 billion.

I would have to raise rates on incomes over 83,000. So think about this. If those evil rich people you keep talking about in the top 25%, I'm not just talking about the 1%, I'm talking about raising taxes on the top 25% because the 1%, you'd only get a fraction of this. Even if people did nothing,

like avoided paying the taxes, which they do when they move out of the country or do municipal bonds or tax shelters or whatever it may be. Even if they did that, Joe, they would raise 1.3 trillion. The deficit next year alone, alone next year,

is going to be probably over 2 trillion. You don't even meet, forget about the budget. You don't even meet the deficit for next year. And that's one year and then the money's gone. So there's nothing to get the year after that when you try to spend even more. So there's no possible, and that's assuming they don't change their behavior, which is literally never happened. You tax people a lot, they engage in the American pastime. What is it, Joe? It's tax avoidance. Tax evasion is a crime.

Tax avoidance is an American pastime. Just ask Al Sharpton and John Kerry. Here's another tidbit from the Forbes article for all you big spendthrift liberals going, ah, there's no consequence. It's denominated in U.S. government assets. We can print all we want and spend it. Really? Quote, debt's future income brought forward.

There is a point at which the debt becomes a drag on U.S. economic growth, and we've probably reached it. GDP growth in the U.S. is going to increasingly look like Japan and or Europe, i.e., almost nil. So the CBO's continued 2% average growth forecast will simply get thrown out the window and the deficits will, will get worse. I've done my homework here, folks. I can't warn you anymore. I'm sorry.

Not to the conservatives. I don't mean to sound like a jerk. To the liberals listening and to the moderate Democrats listening who are convinced you can spend your money into an abyss. I've warned you for years. I have warned you we are spending ourselves into the most predictable financial crisis in American history. And you just continue to move and just about whistling past the graveyard. I am a terrible whistler. I've never figured out how to do that. Joe is a great with Joe can whistle anything

whistling past the graveyard plays the harmonica too. He's very talented. It's going to happen. It is a mathematical certainty we as a country will go bankrupt. Now we can print our way out of it. I'm talking about a de facto bankruptcy, not a de jure one. De facto bankruptcy. Bankruptcy meaning you have all the money in the world.

It just doesn't buy you anything. Here's what I mean by that. I was thinking about this. I was sitting there shaving after the show, thinking about stuff. There's always some stuff moving around to mush in my melon, right? Imagine a world where like

the zombie apocalypse is broken out. I'm serious, for a moment. I promise you this has a point. And there's you and 5,000, 6,000 people left and that's it everyone else has been eaten by the zombies or whatever so you scavenge you go in their house you find open safes there's twenty thirty thousand in cash fifty thousand in cash you get it all joe you got millions thirty forty million in cash why not right you got the paper people left it out they're all

dead they don't need it you're not really stealing from them. Right. It's great, right, Joe? You're in great shape. You got your 20 million, right? Fantastic, right? What's the problem? You're rich, right?

You're rich. You're nominally rich. You're not bankrupt. You have actual money. The problem is it's not actually an exchange of value because it's not actually worth anything anymore. Do you ever think of that? Actually, it is worth something, Joe. It's really good in your fireplace to keep that fire going as a little bit of Kindle. That's what we're doing to our money.

You may have a whole bunch of it, but it's not going to buy you anything.