You are assuming manufacturing trade as only income. Services export and IP export are other where USA leads. When Apple sells iPhone in India and China, it gets to bring back the profits to the USA. Same goes for EU paying for Netflix and Disney movies and Google services. Same for McDonalds, Starbucks, Coca Cola and Pepsi. Collectively, US companies make 100s of billions of profits from outside USA. Another perk is being the reserve currency, you print bonds for free, get clothes/toys for that and rest of the world is just holding onto that IOU. Again, trillions of dollars.
Are you confusing the budget deficit with the trade deficit? Is that what all this is about?
I spend far more on restaurants, household services, and vehicle maintenance than those companies pay me. I have a massive trade imbalance with those companies.
But that has nothing to do with whether my household budget is balanced.
Do people really think that making goods more expensive for consumers will somehow produce the funds to support even greater tax cuts for billionaires?
> I spend far more on restaurants, household services, and vehicle maintenance than those companies pay me. I have a massive trade imbalance with those companies.
And if, for example, a sales tax was increased this would motivate you to buy less services, make food at home and learn how to fix your car.
Sure. But at the cost of the time that I currently use to do other things.
Are you moving the argument from conflating budget and trade deficits to saying the United States’ multi-century economic focus on consumer spending is a mistake, and we need to shift to a savings-focused economy like China used to be? I also think that’s wrong, but it has nothing at all to do with the federal government’s budget deficit.
Or are you under the mistaken impression that trade income is the only income the country has?
