What we owe linky We owe 12,764,878,911,618.18 as of April 1, 2010 10,626,877,048,913.08 as of January 20, 2009 – Obama sworn in 8,673,152,446,066.83 as of January 7, 2007 – 110th Congress (D) takes over 5,727,776,738,304.64 as of January 20, 2001 – Bush sworn in 4,798,116,945,333.39 as of January 3, 1995 – 104th Congress (R) takes over 4,188,092,107,183.60 as of January 20, 1993 – Clinton sworn in I only post the numbers above so that blame can be spread equally and to prevent an ‘evil bush war vs. socialist obama agenda’ debate. If you are gonna post at least admit that we have a culture problem where Rs, Ds & the mob/electorate fail to understand that spending actually cost. I’m also assuming that the mob will not accept a decrease in government services. Too many promises have been made to too many folks. Once you realize that we have a cultural problem and that entitlements and increased discretionary spending cannot be sustained then we can discuss what to do next. If anyone has any other viable options please include in your post. 1.Tax – What I really mean is increase tax receipts relative to spending. Not so much on income but maybe through VAT, consumption or some type of national sales tax. As a former pub I hate this idea but if we order the services we have to pay the bill. 2.Default – The GAO used to have a good report regarding our fiscal problems and the future dates where debt interest would become the largest line-item in our budget. The problem is their analysis used 6% unemployment. Additionally Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will one day hit the down side of the ponzi scheme. The folks they have to pay back will become larger than the folks they can take from to pay the bill. The collision of entitlements and debt interest will cause problems with our credit worthiness……gubment debt investors will go elsewhere…..we won’t have the funds to pay back P or I. This would probably get uglier than it should but I suspect there would be a lot of civil unrest. That’s why we will probably chose option 3. 3.Inflate – The Bank of Uncle Sam could always give us some money. Luckiest bank in the world since it doesn’t have real liabilities on its balance sheet. Although, something tells me that ceteris parabus more money for the same amount of goods and services worldwide would result in the further devaluing of the dollar. My head hurts just trying to think of all the second and third order effects this would have on the world economy. So which do you prefer?
Raise taxes now before the baby boomers retire. It makes no sense to bury our heads in the sand and pretend these bills will never come due. Waiting will only ratchet up the financial pain we will all someday have to endure. That and cut spending across the board. Are Americans really so stupid that we'll never elect a candidate with enough moral fiber to state (and actually act on) the obvious fact that our society simply cannot live beyond our means forever? Some of these guys should be in prison for the money they stealing from future generations. R&D alike. Both are responsible for this mess. Bernard
Raising taxes does not create more revenue for the government. It decreases productivity and slows down the economy so the government ends up with less. And if by chance the economy did not decline, the government has never shown a penchant for paying down its debt. Instead it has chosen to increase its spending. What is needed is spending cuts. What will happen is inflation and an erosion in the value of the dollar.
we will inflate to remedy the problems of the hard debt (as captioned) and soft default on the soft debt (medicare / SS). by soft default, i mean raise retirement ages, limit medicare payouts, means test etc. increased taxation will of course come, but will do nothing to reduce debt levels. as your figures show, congress is incapable of spending only 100 cents of each dollar of revenue. the revolution is coming.
"...[C]ongress is incapable of spending only 100 cents of each dollar of revenue." That is a delightful way of expressing the notion. Is it original to you?
The problem is that increased inflation due to high deficits and weaker currency just kills those of us in the private sector with defined benefit pensions. Public sector employees will be OK, because their pensions have COLAs, and those will be funded by private sector employees' higher taxes.
SoonerinKorea, you've got a pretty fair handle on the predicament. The fiefdoms of all levels of government will continue to extract as much wealth from the constituents as possible for as long as they can get away with it in order to keep the status quo running. At some point, the system fails completely. At the local levels, we'll see higher and higher taxes and fees, resulting in less discretionary income for the populace to spend and making it nearly impossible for small businesses to survive. As a result, governmental revenue will fail to increase despite the additional number of taxes (on soda, cigarettes, fast food, licenses, electricity rates, etc., etc.). The federal government will not and cannot dismantle social security and medicare, and our dependence on oil will not allow us to significantly curtail militarism around the globe, particularly in the Middle East. How we continue to finance all this? For short term relief, expect the federal government to raid retirement funds in exchange for promises of annuitized income. This new source of revenue will go toward the general fund to help with the trillion dollar deficits. But remedies (theft) like this will only go so far. Eventually people will begin to opt out of the system, cheating more and more on income taxes, failing to report income, and transacting underground in order to obtain services. The manufacturing base has been gutted and credit has been maxed out, hence there will be no recovery. The present "recovery" is basically the result of government spending. If the spending ever stops (some day it will), the country falls into the abyss.
Amend The Constitution not to transform it but to make it more perfect. This may be the beginning: The Link We have amended it dozens of times in the past why not now in an hour of great need? Simply put, the Federal governmnet should never ever be allowed to get this big again. If a people want socialism, let their state "go for it". The first step away from the edge is to balance the budget without raising or lowering taxes. Obviously that means huges slashes in domestic spending. Leave it to the states to pick up the slack if they want. As the Federal level retires debt, the Federal level can then begin spending the freed up money on social programs again, up to the point where there are no more debt payments. It is so simple.
I vote for abolishing the income tax and going straight to a VAT. Everyone pays in, and I mean EVERYONE, legal or illegal.
