Fiscal Therapy
Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger
Audacy
4.6 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2019
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Keeping the economy strong will require addressing two distinct but related problems. Steadily rising federal debt makes it harder to grow our economy, boost our living standards, respond to wars or recessions, address social needs, and maintain our role as a global leader. At the same time, we have let critical investments lag and left many people behind even as overall prosperity has grown.
Our latest guest, William Gale, is a leading authority on how federal tax and budget policy affects the economy, and in his latest book, Fiscal Therapy: Curing America's Debt Addiction and Investing in the Future, Gale provides a direct discussion of the challenges posed by the imbalances between spending and revenue.
America is facing a gradual decline as debt accumulates and delay raises the costs of action. But there is hope: fiscal responsibility aligns with both conservative and liberal goals and citizens of all stripes can support the notion of making life better for our children and grandchildren.
We face significant fiscal challenges but, if we are wise enough to seize our opportunities, perhaps we can strengthen our economy, increase opportunity, reduce inequality, and build better lives for our children and grandchildren. We do not have to kill popular programs or starve government.
As the book discusses, one main goal of fiscal reform is to maintain the vital functions that government provides. To act responsibly, pay for the government we want, and shape that government in ways that serve us best.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Jill Schlesinger. On this episode of Jill on Money, we are trying to figure out |
| 0:08.9 | how to balance the nation's books. No politician in the US wants to say the word value added tax. |
| 0:16.7 | It's kind of like Voldemort and Harry Potter. |
| 0:20.1 | But a lot of the proposals that have been made over the last 10 years by Paul Ryan, by |
| 0:27.0 | Ran Paul, by Ted Cruz, by Hermann Kane. |
| 0:30.0 | They're basically value-added taxes. They're just called different things. |
| 0:34.6 | Welcome to the Jill On Money Podcast. |
| 0:36.8 | We are presented by Marcus by Goldman Sachs. |
| 0:40.4 | Remember when people cared about the debt and the deficit? |
| 0:44.0 | In fact, borrowing by the federal government is set to top |
| 0:48.0 | $1 trillion for the second year in a row. That's because we've got higher |
| 0:54.9 | spending which is outpacing revenue growth. We have a guess to put a lot of these |
| 1:00.8 | numbers in context. His name is Bill Gale. He's from the Brookings Institution |
| 1:05.8 | where he is the co-director of the Tax Policy Center and the director of their retirement |
| 1:11.0 | security project. And he's written a new book. |
| 1:14.0 | It's called Fiscal Therapy, |
| 1:16.6 | curing America's debt addiction and investing in the future. |
| 1:21.1 | Here's our interview with Bill Gail. |
| 1:22.8 | You're listening to Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger. |
| 1:27.8 | Okay, the political season, it's heating up and there are going to be a lot of terms that are tossed around as you start |
| 1:34.7 | listening to candidates and right now we have a fantastic guest in our midst |
| 1:40.6 | who's going to help us define some of the terms but also help dig beneath what |
... |
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