No one is likely to be happy with the projected higher deficits laid out in a new analysis of Kamala Harris’ and Donald Trump’s economic plans.
The analysis released Monday by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget suggests a Harris presidency could increase the national debt over 10 years by $3.5 trillion. That’s even though the vice president’s campaign insists her proposed investments in the middle class and housing would be fully offset by higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Her campaign policy guide states that Harris is “committed to fiscal responsibility — making investments that will support our economy, while paying for them and reducing the deficit at the same time.”
The same analysis says former President Trump’s ideas could heap another $7.5 trillion onto the debt and possibly as much as $15.2 trillion. That’s even though he suggests growth would be so strong under his watch that no one would need to worry about deficits.
I had to use Google Translate, if that tells you anything. So that would be another hurdle on top of the bureaucratic ones.
Here’s the situation: my German grandfather married my English Grandmother in 1929 and emigrated to the UK the same year. My father was born in 1931. My grandfather did not officially renounce his German citizenship and become a British subject until 1936.
This would, in theory, make my father a German citizen (he would hate that so much) and my brother and I too.
Here is the really big problem in terms of bureaucracy: my grandfather was Jewish. He was officially listed as stateless on his naturalization papers because Germany no longer recognized him as a citizen for obvious reasons.
So yeah, if I fought hard for it, and I may one day, I could get German (and thus EU) citizenship. But it will take a lot of work.
That said, we fought hard for many years for ownership of an apartment building owned by my great-grandmother and seized by the Nazis that was in the former East Berlin. In 1989, we started lawyering up and I don’t think it all got resolved for about 10 years. Then we had to sell it for a paltry amount of money because renovating it to comply with modern regulations would have been too expensive and there were price controls at the time. But we fought and won. Maybe I should do it again.
I get it, I got my family out of a country with a very similar “going to right-wing klepto-shitscape” trajectory right in the middle of COVID. Had to get my nose stuck every 3 days for a month. I worked sitting on the floor with my laptop on a cardboard box for 2 weeks, while all my furniture was said box and a mattress. Had to learn a fourth language while I was getting taken advantage by employers left and right.
No regrets, absolutely none. I don’t know the US, but where I’m from didn’t get better, it got so much worse I barely recognise it anymore.