Kathryn Anne Edwards

Some of them were pushing five.

And you can't cut taxes and expect the debt to be better or the deficit to be better.

So it's the solution there is at least— And go to war at the same time.

The solution is quite easy.

I think what people get hung up on is, you know, what matters more is the direction that deficit and debts are going and not a one-year solution.

Trying to extract $2 trillion extra in a year, that would be tough.

Definitely would hurt the economy.

But putting us on a trajectory so that in 10 years we're extracting $2 trillion extra, I don't think spells economic disaster.

We have a very progressive income tax system.

It does 95% of the work for us.

All we have to do is not drop rates too much.

People at the very top have seen their income grow at a breakneck pace to the degree that in the only dedicated progressive system that we have for collecting taxes, they pay a lot more.

And all those stats they say about the top 1% or the top 10% pays X percent of taxes, and they're mostly all true, but what they're not telling you is how much income they earn.

And they're being punished in a progressive tax system because they've earned so much more money.

We don't have to do much to the top tax rates or even to the estate tax or to the capital gains tax or the step-up basis and the corporate tax.

We don't have to do that much to start raising money relatively quickly and put us on a trajectory to deal with the debt.

And all that matters is that we're going in the right direction.

The biggest problem today isn't $1 trillion versus $2 trillion in deficits.

It is the direction we are going in, which is to collect less revenue than we should be.

So I don't think it has to break the economy.