Eliminate deficient spending (i.e. spending more that you take in).  This is at the heart of the Fed's money-printing machine thinking.

There's also dark money: i.e. funds for secret programs that even Congress is not allowed to know how much it is because that might allow someone to infer what's being done with it.

Talk about utterly unchecked power!  With all this secrecy and government incited censorship, how are the citizen of a free nation suppose to make informed choices? 

"By the People" indeed!

Step 1 - Congress delegates the power of setting tax rates to an independent body.

Step 2 - Independent body is made up of accountants, actuaries, and economists.

Step 3 - Independent body devises the mathematical calculation for tax rates. Within a certain level of GDP deficit on a net present value factor. Tax rates are automated. Some consideration for the economic cycle, rates auto lower during recession and rise during recoveries. Providing an auto gas/brake as needed without political interference.

Step 4 - Congress argues and passes the bills on how to spend the money for the country for what is important. Guns vs butter. If they spend to much, we, the current taxpayers begin to feel the pain now and can vote accordingly. Future generations will not feel the brunt of our lack of responsibility for our actions.

Step 5 - Congress is held accountable on a semi-real time basis (every 2 years) by the voters for the choices they make. You can't spend and not tax. You must debate what is important to the majority of the people. Debate and compromise,

Step 6 - Problem solved Utopia breaks out.

Step 7 - Constant review of the process to make sure no one is gaming the system. New problem found? Repeat fix.

On GDP growth, not "stunning" but normal.  Here's the inflation adjusted graph (also adjusted by population)

You can see that once you take inflation and population growth out, it's pretty linear.

However, it's even worse than you might guess since Federal spending is part of GDP and we know that has greatly increased, especially in the last 8 years.  In fact, once nearly 1 million jobs were quietly adjusted out of the last year's inflated monthly reports --- almost all the remaining jobs added were federal.

However, that does not disprove what you are saying about recovery.  By those metrics the financial markets have.  There are other indicators I could dig for, but it would be an effort.

Not bad Andrew!  Have you heard Warren Buffet's solution? 

“I could end the deficit in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.”

Which is a strong performance. As steep as the boom years in the 80s. As steep as post-war years. Much, much stronger than the 1970s.

As for Nonfarm payrolls being adjusted.... There is nothing untoward in this. Measuring real world data is always subject to revisions. The BLS adjusts NFPs on a monthly basis anyway, and every report always has an adjustment for the previous couple of months. The most inflated thing I see is your description that it was revised down by nearly 1 million. It was revised down by 818k. And that revision meant the jobs market was merely strong by historical standards rather than super-tight as previously thought. The number will be revised again in February 2025. Each revision is just giving us a better picture of the past.

By the by, the most recent nonfarm payrolls (for August) showed jobs growth of 142,000, which is indicative of a growing economy. This report is basically the most up-to-date proxy for GDP performance and I therefore do not see the evidence for your claim that the economy is in recession. The data simply does not back this claim up.

Mark:  You invoked "science", so I am thinking you mean either pandemics or climate change.  Both are massive rabbit holes and I imagine I don't hold the same beliefs you do on those topics.  

I tried very hard to research climate change in order to give an informed and unbiased opinion to my sister-in-law---I even know a little bit about the composition of the atmosphere and radiometry because of work.  In the process of trying to understand the "science" I got called nasty names by both sides of that debate on social media.  I've read the IPCC and some academic papers.  My conclusion after about 4 months zooming in on the micro topic as to whether CO2 via the greenhouse effect is driving a temperature increase: there is no consensus.  I cannot say scientifically what is correct.  There are proven instances of historical data tampering, contrary opinion suppression, and a whole lot of half-truths being told because there's a lot of money at stake.

I have, however, formed a biased opinion based on who has lied in the past and who has a profit motive in order to jump to a personal conclusion, and it's that there is a con-game for profit and control being run using climate change as a fabricated crisis.  I feel it's extremely unlikely man-made CO2 controls planetary temperature, and methane even less so.  Climate does change, and mankind's actions have an impact on the environment...but the counting carbon thing seems a nefarious BS metric.

At this point I am not sure anyone can know the answer (and the whole-Earth climate models for this are quite crude).  All of the predictive models (and there are dozens of named ones) have been wrong for the past 25 years---EXCEPT THE RUSSIAN ONE WHICH IGNORES CO2's greenhouse effect!?!  This chaos is getting amplified over time because fewer and fewer climate "scientists" have any background in physics and are coming at it from the angle of "public policy degree" etc.

Does that help you mentally pigeon-hole me as a total nutjob?  Well, whatever you make think of me, I really do just want to know the truth, and in this case I could not definitively find it so I had to go with my gut. (Puts tinfoil hat back on head.)

Bottom line is: Do you think if your government taxes the hell out of you it's really going to help control the weather?

Peter:  Sure, if you want to call typical, "strong". I think what's most surprising is how little influence politicians and fiscal policy have had on the real GDP grow.  Only a few dips jump out: 1970s, 2009 and COVID.  It irks me to give any credit to the Federal Reserve but what is actually driving it?  Weird.

Here's a short video on one recession metric and mentions the others he has previously covered:

EDIT:  Another recent indicator (bankruptcies up 63%)

and another (consumer debt)