Yasch22 wrote: I can't think of any Canadian government for the past 40 years that has raised or lowered taxes in a really unfair way, or has misspent money egregiously over a long period of time. Amazing thing: we've managed to hang on to a thriving middle class, we have decent minimum wage laws, and we have a social safety net that a lot of Americans (hilariously) would call "evil socialism."
The average expenditure on healthcare administrative costs per person in the USA is $2,500, while in Canada -- which has universal healthcare -- it's $550. But Canadians on average are better off. Hundreds of thousands of Americans go bankrupt every year because of healthcare costs.
Click this for background. Governments all over the world are increasing deficits to counter the effects of Covid-19. I don't have a problem with that. Deficits lead to money-printing, which leads to inflation. That in turn reduces the amount of debt owed by governments, though it also raises costs to service the debt. If inflation does NOT result, then interest rates stay really low, and governments escape the consequences of their deficits in that way. Basically, as long a government doesn't go to extremes, and as long as the underlying economy remains strong, they'll do all right in the long term.
Then again, I'm not so hopeful about the USA. Their issues with spending and taxation are a lot different than anything Canadians or Europeans experience. Americans have witnessed a steady widening of the gap between rich and poor for about five decades now. The tax cuts that Republican presidents are so proud of simply distribute massive new wealth to the rich.
The "beauty" of the trickle down scam is that the upper class has mobilized the working class into believing that higher taxes for the rich are a huge threat to every American's freedom. So the rich just keep on getting richer, and the poor are shackled by low wages, inadequate medical insurance, and (not a joke) really lousy internet connections. But lo & behold, the poor will still fight like crazy to preserve the right of the 1% to exploit the living hell out of them.