everybody says it can happen in the u.s. it definitely can't. people can change their consumption behavior and demand this so yes, you're right it would have to end. we have run out of time. thank you. q.

[applause] primary thank you so much and look forward to the discussion. >> thank you and i want to thank everyone for coming back of the room is pretty full. it's really what everyone was waiting for you spent the whole morning here. last night i went to sleep, i was thinking this event is set up perfectly, the sequencing of the panel first the director women will give us the percentage of gdp in which it becomes guns available.

there will come in and tell us that night is falling for the last it is in order, the economy will collapse and this cannot both will in the afternoon and saved america and eventually have statues all around the country. the panels for those of you who did not quite go where i laid out and assume we are here to talk about how to raise taxes in the subpanel about policy not

politics policy does not operate in a vacuum, it's a political something of those work earlier today. i want to talk about ways in which we operate. i'll ask this way, why the reduction so hard, why is school reform so hard? >> we basically have two ways of financing priorities. we can finance funding through taxes. it limits a negative impact on probably inevitably reduction in incentives from higher taxes work we can private spending

priorities to borrow which makes our economy moment. who gets hurt in benefits from two different ways of financing is really different so if you raise taxes on people, they probably will understand how the taxes were affected they will show the distribution affect and argue for the reflect incidents and such but these are conversations out there in the relatively easy people to the negative effects on the output spending firing, the effects are slow and difficult to figure out

the economic effects so it is no surprise have chosen this work barring. when you look at the projection of how their spending to borrowing and it is very large. effects are negative. i'm very confident spending for the tax policy creates a bigger economy over time.

the negative effects are modest and slow and a bigger economy. i strong opinions where we will and won't be and how marvin's respond. i think the reason it is hard is because one way is salient in the other is okay. we don't have a national conversation that says these are spending priorities among this is the consensus given them it's

very significant reference, we don't have a conversation saying this is clearly what we have revealed ourselves on, what's figure out how. >> any thoughts about? >> a big reason for personal, founding fathers made it difficult deliberately. it is when you need our government to do something they are of the white house and across in benefits you raise taxes on somebody and raise

spending, they are aware the benefits of future generations right now. will go to doctor five not six. [laughter] and even if they could agree on mice, they need a way and there needs to be guaranty of how the codes are. the rest last reason is the public. the public is so good about this

data provides no report or any politicians there. the deficits it is the myopic nature. in this earlier but there is something not popular about this make it not priority remember

the political and public challenges in mind, we shipped to the policy discussion in part about transition, i will be off my phone my favorite quote i cap memorized no matter how hard i try. capitalism and freedom crisis produces real change. when that occurs, the actions depend on what is lying around. cap i believe is the basic function to develop alternatives for existing policies keep them alive and available and impossible becomes the politically inevitable in protest of the panel here is not to make politically difficult reality but to keep i guess alive and available so that's

start of the highest level work our way around detail what is the right framework instructing table federal budget spending and revenue side and how they should be instructed in the relationship of the relatives in the economy or whatever ventures you pervert. before we get into specific policies, i like this, may not be consensus on the right data. >> first, i find it remarkable i think it does come back to why it is so hard and there really

isn't a lot of different areas. if market perception changes and because of politics in the financial markets, if market perception changes dramatically about what's happening they will. think about how to raise taxes and get interest rates down. make sure there's a lot of well-thought-out ideas on the shelf and that moment that i think of the challenge is the likelihood of acting well in advance of that moment.

this is how much this is what we think distributional composition of the increases should be. a largely political and the distributional one.

how we want this to be and they are dumb numbers people have in support. what we need to decide the topic of our revenue we want and then decide how we finance it and then there will be interaction. that is around the edges were really rich country. numeral the federal government to spend money for the private sector to spend this last where

we want the spending to happen so it was not order. let's figure out how we finance it and with the tip. >> when you made reference in the well-designed tax policy relative to the deficits and that alone is an important topic. it's also a question about whether or not it's a realistic alternative or just tax increases. we'll have a perfect tax code today and it's not perfect.

if you want to get more revenue out of the system, or were going to make it work perfect or less imperfect? try to improve the efficiency while raising more revenue? how would we do that? change the distribution of the tax code for raise more revenue in the future than currently and make it less efficient. those are the choices so we have with inefficiency and some activity and generating more revenue there is this question of who is making those changes in the opportunities to say okay, given the fact that we agree with these revenues more than ever it is more efficient

or we can say need for revenue and i want the system more progressive. i don't like the change in the distribution or these revenues will never get in we need to recognize that is a choice to make and make it less efficient. >> it's not just how big or small and they ought to be it

would be grateful. >> you mentioned the position and increase productivity or whatever, is that what you are giving out? the budget in particular really

unfocused on debt rather than what the money is being used for and take a step back. depending on oscar. and we are not talking about systems exist only on paper longer talking about this. in the demographics, the

projects to rise above. and i think we just don't have the tax system put in place to support spending parities. we can for sure decide around the edges, but listen and bend the cost curve a little bit but when you think about some of those of the big pictures and projected rising deficits because we have big pressures on the federal government and broad-based spending priorities

so i don't want us to go immediately to narrow, i have a way to change expenditures like i worry that immediately goes to the narrow and ignores i think we do want the federal government generally speaking. >> i think demographic changes, it is really important probably think about that side and what the appropriate revenue side is. in particular with social security it's all about demographics. you got and a change in christ and maybe in preference cost of the demographics so the

implication is the historical or data may not be the best indicator for what it needs to be but that is the thing we need jack up and the sufficiency only more alert,. >> you alluded to a question i wanted to ask share of gdp, sometimes people say technocrats and agree on a lot of stuff and there's a political problem onto the policy experts and elected

officials on think, to measure whether deficit reduction package increasing or decreasing spending our revenue over the long run this question of baseline operate to look at the balances our current policy gdp, is there even as we saw this person was supposed asked in isn't there disagreement amongst experts about threshold question? >> i think there is always the case but in particular right now in the of a place where the current is the current law they find it very different.

and not act it is urgent. i think our budget experts about disagreement among analysts to look at this, politicians they can diverge radically so they may be looking at their preferred policies. tenderness very different credit came up earlier in conversation and the benefits are payable and

there are important questions public really do say how big the problem list to address this problem when you are proposing a policy, whatever your memorization. what does it mean for the world for the next three decades? does it matter my priorities are taking about what you individually like on the table.

regardless of what your comparison is look at the projections of the world proposed. >> complete hypothetically decided the current level of spending -- when i was going to get on was the current level of spending the race taxes and spending today and the answer is probably not. make generally don't keep up with.

>> it can be static because the demographics are ecstatic. the policies should change and maybe will get more efficient when it comes to healthcare and/or to gorge ourselves. in the military spending that will create all the tax revenue we need. in the policies in place now if we want them sustainable to be

out there. let me ask a question you will probably be short have questions on. -- can we all agree is scary long-term sustainable trajectory federal budget is on is not driven by discretionary spending? the baseline and discretionary spending will shrink over time can think of that, as offsetting even more unsustainability than

it would otherwise appear. it's ironic biggest of the political question. the last three times they've done deficit reduction going back to 2011 budget control act and the debt limit deal because former speaker mccarthy and president biden they relied heavily on discretionary spending even though discretionary spending is to the share of the economy of the baseline anyway and to answer, the ghost to the political price challenge that leads to 800-pound gorillas in the room. we want to step on their jurisdiction for they will take that off the table and the focus on taxes and healthcare we have

already talked a little bit about those things. i'm not a health policy expert but it is interesting there's a parallel problem between the federal budget and the economy that is not just how spending growing unsustainably in the share of the federal public budget but they are growing on gdp public and private healthcare expenditures. you can say it is quarterback but tired the developed world and continue to grow the share of gdp so there appears to be a relationship between federal budget and overall economy. that say anything where we ought to be looking when it comes to health spending the idea but we

will cut military right now doesn't seem likely. the idea of cutting interest in social security we talked about the last big part of that puzzle. a couple things, host cap you, a couple of things stand out healthcare spending one is the large will of across the legal system and the second is a large healthcare cost income doctors and nurses and etc. so putting healthcare costs is some sense making an attempt to cut incomes

cannot make why it is difficult and as technology advances, procedures for use across infinite amounts of money because they were impossible will come down costs have finite amounts of money but then they have those procedures so healthcare expenditures go up so as i've gotten older i become more sympathetic that they nationally rise with income so there is a problem there and i don't know how to solve it. ...

looks at the budget and says gdp went up by x and healthcare spending was a percent of it. it's always a big number. we had gradually move towards spending, again a ritual to country with gradually move towards spending more on health care. >> i'm also not a healthcare expert, and yet will opine. >> we all slept and holiday inn express last night. [laughing] >> so you don't want to be spending this money on healthcare that's worthless, right? we want healthcare spending to be efficient. i think we should do, it is money laying on the sidewalk, fine. let's say we should do that.

i have ideas to cut administrative costs, but the hamilton project has put out proposals, but i will just say that's money on the sidewalk. i think the two other questions are, maybe three other questions. one, i'm not sure it's absurd. this is related to the point bill was making. as we get richer, we spent an increasing amount over and above how much typically on healthcare. you can say but that can happen forever. and i will say oh, for pete's sake. like, they can happen for a very long time. and as we get richer. maybe that's just what we've decided we value, seems kind reasonable. i've then you have to ask how much do we want the federal

government to do and how much do what the private sector to do? need you can say okay if we actually, accepting that there is a distribution of income and people are going to have different access to healthcare to bid on what their income is, we can decide we want a a bud, we want a federal budget where we spend this much in healthcare and no more, and then we need to recognize we are saying you, individual person sitting over there, you get this much healthcare and no more. and maybe what we are really saying is if you have lived your life differently and been luckier and higher income of all the money you and will, then you could've gotten healthcare but that's cold comfort to the person. we need to be clear we're saying for that person you get this much healthcare and no more. now, we do that in all sorts of different respects in terms of federal policy. so like i'm not saying that is at all beyond the pale, by the

don't think we need to remotely have the maturity as a country to have that conversation in a transparent way and say we are going to tell these poor old people that they need to go to hospice. that's the hard thing about if we simply want to have the federal government does this and this much on health care no more, then i think that's arco station where having, or to have. >> a couple of thoughts. first on the discretion appoint under you want to get anybody in on that. in the baseline cbo projects discretion is going down but that's -- like their rule, increases only with inflation, not with gdp. the problem we face may be larger if discretionary spending grows in in a manner -- >> but that's an annual decision

by congress starting from zero. if congress does nothing, discretion spending is zero, it's only if congress decides to enact more -- >> right, right, right. that said, it's not the driver of a problem. it is the thing where saying. what i'll say about healthcare, i mean, i think one, bill, your point about wages, doctors and nurses salaries, so important to the fact understand why we struggle so much they're also helps explain whether so much focus on the nonwage part of healthcare reform. it's all about like drug spending because that's that someone wage, some as prophets or something like that. because of the difficulty in saying no, doctors are not going to get another 5% boost or whatever it is. that's what huge percentage of the money is.

that problem is big part of the problem. i which is also say, two things could be true. could be the case as we age and her demographics shift and as we become wealthier and preferences shift towards more healthcare, that is true. that is happening. and it's also the case that the incentives of the program might also be contributing to the growth of the program. it's going to be pretty hard to undo the demographics, at least in federal policy. we are going up to do with that. we are going to have more old people in the future that we had in the past. but we do need to think to what extent are there ways to change the incentives in the program so that lawmakers don't simply keep voting to give raises to doctors and nurses all the time because that feels good to them.

to the extent we can slow the growth of the program to those types of mechanisms we can mitigate some of the train we have. >> let me shift gears here. i think they'll we've all proven our healthcare expertise. i was going to say taxes, but i want to take a little bit of a broader look. i think all of our careers until a few years ago the word taxes and revenues were pretty much synonymous in 98%, 99% of federal revenues came from taxes. however, we have now in recent years learned about these things called tariffs. we always knew about tariffs but in the past, tariffs were trade policy. they were economic policy, they were national security policy, foreign policy but they were not budget policy. they were not fiscal policy. they were too small in material

to really be part of those conversations. we've had a little bit of talk about well-designed tax policy, and we could do a whole panel on that because there's crazy tax expertise of it. i don't want to miss the opportunity to talk about this of the kind of revenue that is now increasingly becoming a material component of the federal budget. our last two presidents are the two most common in my view, the two most pro-tariff presidents since herbert hoover, from fdr to obama we had a bipartisan white house level consensus on free trade. and that is changing. and, of course, trump is more pro-tariff than biden by a long shot but i think biden is a clear number two cents, i mean going back to fdr who was a free trader. and now we're talking about

hundreds of billions in tariffs that already in place in the ten year, over ten years, raising hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs. i know that certain people in the trump inner circle always fought. thought. they sought in the context of the tcja and the tears they came shortly after that. they see it now in the context of the campaign talk, by continuing to cut taxes but imposing a general 10% tariff and maybe other even higher tariffs in some countries like 6% on china. even though the news stories don't tend to talk about those two things in the same articles, you could article says a trump said he will cut taxes and you get articles that say trump said he's going to raise tariffs. there are people in his circle who see the to tie together as a swap. from a public finance perspective they want the federal government to rely more heavily on external tariffs and

less heavily on integral taxes. obviously i think the biden folks don't go nearly as far, but they have left very substantial loaves of tariffs in place. do we need to start thinking about tariffs as a fiscal option, as a deficit reduction option going forward? as as a subset of taxes even. >> we don't. [laughing] but others clearly are. and i think it's unfortunate that on the question and ability question, sort of orders of magnitude, you know, the levels of tariffs that former president trump is talking about relative to the expiration of tcja. were getting into territories of like we could pay for tcja extension with former president trump's tariff agenda. maybe not quite but it's at that speed is same order of magnitude.

>> talking trillions, that hundreds of millions of dollars in the past. trillions going forward over the budget window and potential tariffs. tariffs are bad. i appreciate your point about president biden coming in second but president biden a sort of a status quo strategy with respect to tariffs which is very distinct strategy and not nearly as destructive as the proposals that are coming out of the trump camp. >> i am someone who is that a couple times times a well-designed tax system. this is that it will -- i mean putting a 10% tariff on everything coming in to the country susceptible to fund tax system. i don't quite understand the scores that i've seen because i can't, it's hard for me to contemplate an economy that would stand those tariffs. >> i don't think those scores tend to incorporate a lot of behavioral response. >> i am a dynamic score person in many regards, this visitor

like this one. if are going to talk about this amount of tax revenue on this network of the tax base i don't get it. like, i don't it. it's funny, you were talking about how it feels like a bygone era. tariffs are so, it's so -- this idea okay, we're going to raise tax revenues through tariffs because economic activity is really okay. you know, the only way we can really know how much economic activity there is this a go to the ports and see what we can see with our eyes, see the stuff coming off of the ship onto the port. like, there's a reason tariffs played a significant role in our economy a very long time ago. we now have a much more efficient way to raise revenue. so i think rather than seeing tariffs as as a way to solver

fiscal issues, i think it's more, i mean, the arguments i think i can at least grapple with our tariffs as industrial policy. it's so much, like, i believe that one of the things the tax system does, like i believe one of the things fiscal policy does is influence the composition of output and basically has an additional policy aspect to it. always been true. i think it's true now and we just need to be clever about how we do it. i think tariffs as industrial policy, like, it's, i again it's really narrowly targeted. >> i was going to say, to do tariffs even if the chance of doing it fairly, , effectively s industrial policy gets it

targeted. >> it's super narrow prick you probably want, like, like i can see reasons. i can see the way some countries as if omitted tariffs as part of industrial policy in a way that is that long-term gains. but like -- >> like anti-dumping. >> yeah, or hey, we really need to call this one industry because, were going to do it through tears for a time until it goes and gets mature. but you know, we are, we are, if this were the one thing that was keeping us from the frontier of really perfect tax policy and additional policy, i would be on board with that but we are not. this is not the low hanging fruit. >> so as a tax policy, tariffs are a terrible idea. they are brought on for tax purposes to try to manipulate the trade balance.

but the trade balance, they don't have that effect. the trade balance is going to depend on the difference between domestic saving and domestic investment, and if the tariffs don't change that it's not going to change the trade bills. you can use the simplest macroeconomic identity equations to show that. in terms of their incidents, one of the apparent attractions of tariffs is that they tax people elsewhere. they tax foreigners, but they don't actually do that. they raise costs for american consumers. they raise costs for american businesses, and they, you know, the appeal may be strategic for national security or industrial policy, but there is no tax policy argument for it. >> let's then shift to more of a

comfort zone and well-designed tax policy. let's just go down the line. we will start with bill, go towards me. would love to hear thoughts on some ideas, some options that you consider to be and will see a much intent is we have, well-designed tax policy options. if you want to throw in some well-designed nontax policy options that you are a particular fan of, please feel free to do so as well. >> all right. so the first option has to be getting the irs the money to enforce the tax system. that is going to actually make money by funding the irs to the level it needs. after that you can go in various directions. personally, i would favor a carbon tax over the various subsidies we have for clean energy vote on revenue grounds and simplicity grounds. in terms of a broad revenue

raiser, i would like to see a value-added tax, which partially funds a universal basic income. i wrote a paper on bad for windy, or for j i guess a couple years ago, for hamilton. and then we need to do, if are going to put in a broad-based tax like that, we need i think to raise taxes on the wealthy and that involves either taxing gains at death and/or converting the estate tax to an inherited tax, which a significant revenue potential there are other things, but our time is limited. >> so -- >> i'm sorry. let me come to want to add one more thing. given the difficulties in cutting spending, a notion that the records of spending and no one came up with really great ideas on how to cut healthcare spending. given that it's going to be

difficult to do a whole lot on the spending side i think. so i think a fair chunk of our fiscal consolidation is going to have to come on the tax cut. sorry. >> i think that's the world i would pretty happy to live in. i'm a little, bill would have to convince the carbon tax and value-added tax can coexist. but bill can consist the other. >> i wasn't sure if that was a both or and even or. later in top of the other -- layered on top of each other. >> site will not repeat any of that stuff. i think, i think i, i didn't think in 2016 the individual tax rates were terribly high. and i thought our economy could

withstand those tax rates. so i don't, like, as long as, like, bill has passed me the magic wand and a don't have to worry about politics, i think we should let all of the lower tax rates in the 2017 tax act facing individuals i think we should let those expire. and i think that we should raise more money from corporations, raising the corporate tax rate would be a good start. not back to what it was pre-2017 tax act, but raise it. i totally appreciate all of the economic modeling done by many of the people in this room, showing a negative fiscal effects of that but i also appreciate that corporations are very clever at making sure that money, that the prophets ever actually make it into taxable income. so i think it's a second-best of her first kind of issue. and i think we should get

smarter people than me to figure out ways of improving the international tax system and do more to become similar to just make sure that we don't have u.s. multinationals actually paying taxes to other countries. >> can i ask you clarify question you said to let the rates expire from the tcja but to keep all the things that never the tax base, like the doubling of standard deduction. >> is no, no, no. i like, i very much like the higher deduction. >> what about the offsets mortgage interest and -- >> so i think raising standard deductions mostly have worked. so let's not worry about mortgages. i'm perfectly happy to get rid of, i mean, the salt stuff, , im on the side of -- good enough.

what were the other questions? okay. >> i think that answered it. >> i think that's it. i'll say a couple things. i agree with him strongly agree with bills first few suggestions. or three may be that we need to fund the tax collector so they can collect the taxes that are due and properly owed for sure. i don't know exactly what the level is but somebody should figure it out. we should give them the money and resources they need. i totally agree with taking out the subsidies for clean energy and green energy and replacing it with carbon. his issues are large. that's a lot of money right there. probably will not solve our problems but those to make issues alone are like children deb fischer. >> isn't a carbon tax bill if it works correctly designed to eventually raise a zero? >> only if you think the optimal level of emissions -- to penny

what -- but there's a question -- >> if it incentivizes what people are trying to incentivize for carbon tax, then it's sort of like tobacco tax, right? it will decline as revenue source overtime. >> it may depend on the rate. and the responsiveness. >> i would also say that i don't see, there's a point i think i was trying to allude to earlier like this issue around changing the tax code as the way or the time to raise more revenue. which is certainly, we can do that. sort of kill two birds with one stone. if you both of those objectives. i think it makes a a problem e difficult though. in a political matter. and i think there's -- some people might argue this is the

moment to increase the tax code. people might make the opposite are you pretty might say the argument i was make, if you want of more revenue we need to have a system that is flat affect that would be more efficient. let's push it the other way. or you can come in the middle and say let's try to hold relative constant thing but how we can raise revenue. there are ways we could raise revenue holding the tax code relatively calm and that would be recognizing the fact lots of taxpayers have income that's not taxed. the health insurance benefits are not tax. there are excluded. so by brink for example, bring in employer-provided health insurance into the tax code we would raise come to bid on how you structure it, tons of money. and for each taxpayer they would pay at the marginal rate. it would be consistent with the progress of your taxco. >> it's not perfectly true

because -- >> but those types of ideas were changing the indexing of the tax code. not to make it more perfect but to generate more revenue would be something that would hold constant tax code. i would think about trying to find ways to raise revenues by broadening the base in a broadway. as sort of my first bit. >> to build point we will have to do this mostly on taxes will be hard to do on spending. that kind of gets into the issue of there's a lot of spending through the tax code and i'm not come this is a question i want to see if we have any ideas questions come this and putting out there that there are ways to reduce the extent to which government distorts the economy that raise revenue rather than cutting spending. and with that i will stop asking questions and see if we audience

questions. am i calling on people? >> i'm afraid a lot of the history of the proposals to tax capital games to death has been lost. i was in the closed-door meeting and out ways and means committee in 76 went out he had the votes to the capital gains tax at death and the number two democrat sam from florida said no, no, wait a medic and you're going to force all the family farms to be sold. well, there's a lot of you are family farms now, and most of the agriculture is big corporate farms. the scf, survey of consumer finance from the fed, showing a tripling of wealth since 2010. isn't that an argument for a

capital gains at death? >> yeah. [laughing] if you did in the current system you would probably want to make some adjustments to estate tax so you are not doubling the tax. but something, the composition of stage in the top 1% are over 10 million, a very substantial share of those estates consist of unreal as capital gains. i'm not sure if it's 40 or 50% but is something like that in that group. that income is never taxed under the income tax, right, because it's given basically a step up. you could do carryover basis instead, but that means that mean that the tax for hundreds of years. [inaudible] >> well, right, true, too. i feel like people argue, well,

people argue for wealth tax, annual wealth tax. that's three hard to do just administratively. but is a reckoning happenings at death with estates and there's no reason to give that, the angel of death loophole. >> it just doesn't score as well because it is so far in the future. >> carryover basis. >> no, no, no. anything about estate tax because it's, you know, -- >> i made the issue with farms and businesses are not that big and can be dealt with. right in particular it reduces the lock in a fact of life because people are holding onto assets that they know they can pass tax-free at death. i think it has a lot to offer. one side issue is that gifts are treated on a carryover basis. unless you want to get into

this. but there are site issues. [inaudible] >> i just had a quick question hopefully. i'm hopeful the panel might be able to discuss it a little bit. as a part of reform can we agree to be more truthful to the american people about what the actual deficit of our country are? in 2022, we reported a $1.4 trillion budget deficit, when the actual bottom line loss to the country was 4.2 trillion. last year we reported a $1.7 trillion budget deficit when the actual was 3.4 trillion. if anybody doubts my numbers just look at the annual financial statements for our country and you will see it in there. now, that's on an accrual basis of accounting of that's defined as the actual bottom line of the

country. so when washington start telling people what a real loss is versus what the cash basis loss was when the cash basis number in my view issue issued bo figure what our debt financing needs to be. also, when you looking at the financial statement take a look at the balance sheet. there's one point, , there's $70 trillion worth of liabilities built upon that balance sheet that are not part of the 26th or $27 trillion of debt outstanding that we will have to incur debt from. so anybody want to field of that or give me your thoughts on it. >> would've been a perfect question for kent. [laughing] >> he's in the front. get him afterwards. [laughing] >> i'll jump and just have one thing which is, i think the calculation, this partly goes to the conversation that alvin and kent had earlier. i think when we think about -- alan -- implicit liabilities and

add up all of the liabilities on that part of the balance sheet, i think one has to be careful to also add, i can remember it was alan orton gordon kent tyt you actually want, he made a useful denominator. you can either make that denominator like a like t value of gdp. you can even more narrowly make it a net present value of all revenues under current law. but i think if you're going to do one of these things were like oh, on the left-hand side of my balance sheet in red i have this really big scary number. i think if you want to make that have economic meaning then you have to talk about what's on the right-hand side of balance sheet, which is a a whole lot of output. taxable income, or potentially taxable income.

>> can you solve the problem by showing the net, the liability? >> did you get to like physical gaps calculation basically. >> i think kent was showing a net number. there is a really hard problem on communicative these issues i think. i'm pretty sure i don't know what $67 trillion means. $67 trillion come like i just kind of shut down and didn't really worry about it. >> what if i tell you if i stacked about up to the moon, like does that help? >> that's right. >> i don't know how far the moon is either. [laughing] >> no. alex makes an important point. with that, the average american start type telling but trih a 1 trillion or 100 trillion, it becomes a meaningless number. i think that nobody is one of the charges, the biggest challenge we face is how to communicate these problems in ways that are salient to average

people. >> slightly more sensibly. the other thing i will say from a a time at cbo, i'm surrounded by my old cbo colleagues making her happy. at my time at cbo, i mean, as we thought, we thought a lot about how to effectively committed these issues to policymakers. and you show a projection of current law where under current law debt to gdp after 30 years is going to be, i can't did member, 150%, 130%. did you say but i know, i know i know, i know will get them to act. let's do debt to gdp under current policy. i know what will get. what if its current policy and we put in an alternative scenario for interest rates are even higher? at a certain point, if 100, if that as a share of gdp rising

50% overtime was going to get their attention, like, is 70 going to get their attention? 80? like, it's common we, i always my personal expense was ever scary you projections were not going to do the thing that broke through all of the political hurdles where we started. >> i think quicktime for one more question maybe if there is one. back here. >> this has been a great day, great panel. let me ask bill gale. i found interesting you're looking, going to other kinds of taxes. not relying on the income tax for your ideal world. v.a.t. tax. i believe that is considered a consumption tax. everything i hear or been taught is the truth the best way to go.

however, would you pair that with the retaining the current income tax? and also just from all of your experience and personal judgment, i am curious, what do you think is the highest level that should be appropriate for a high earner marginal income tax ask as you know it's already at 55% in high income states. for income over $1 million. approximately. >> thank you for the question. i do think we should retain the income tax. i think we could push the top rate up above the high 30s for the federal statutory rape. i am aware -- i don't, i don't think it, i'm not talked about 70% something like that. i think there's there's room

there but i did but that is a top priority because i feel like it's too much of debate in d.c. and this applies not to just issue but especially the next year. too much of the debate is going to focus on tcja and do we extend this, to extend that, do we cut back? and not enough is focused on -- there are all these other ideas, all these ideas that milton friedman said were on the shelf, and that personally we all take personal pride in putting on the shelf. i would like to see the debate be much more expansive than just do we extend 25%, 50% or 100% of the tcja. >> okay. thank you all. i think problem solved, right? turned back over to kent. >> let's thank the panel.