The scale of America’s deficit and debt problem is staggering.
Thanks to an ageing population, exploding health care costs and inaction from both sides of politics, the Government Accountability Office now estimates that the United States is looking down the barrel of a $90 trillion fiscal gap over the next 75 years.
Treasury secretary Tim Geithner estimates that the US is adding about $125 billion of debt each month and the nation is expected to hit its $14.3 trillion debt ceiling in May.
Former treasury secretary James Baker describes the “debt bomb” as the number one problem for America.
“If we didn’t have the dollar as the de facto reserve currency of the world, we’d be Greece. I mean we are broke,” he exclaimed on CNN.
But doing something about it would take real gumption and the political cycle isn’t helping….
President Obama will probably call for raising taxes on the rich. Of course it is important never to define “the rich”. That way you can always think that it isn’t you.
Walter Williams explodes this idea in the following:
[blockquote] This year, Congress will spend $3.7 trillion dollars. That turns out to be about $10 billion per day. Can we prey upon the rich to cough up the money? According to IRS statistics, roughly 2 percent of U.S. households have an income of $250,000 and above. By the way, $250,000 per year hardly qualifies one as being rich. It’s not even yacht and Lear jet money. All told, households earning $250,000 and above account for 25 percent, or $1.97 trillion, of the nearly $8 trillion of total household income. If Congress imposed a 100 percent tax, taking all earnings above $250,000 per year, it would yield the princely sum of $1.4 trillion. That would keep the government running for 141 days, but there’s a problem because there are 224 more days left in the year.
How about corporate profits to fill the gap? Fortune 500 companies earn nearly $400 billion in profits. Since leftists think profits are little less than theft and greed, Congress might confiscate these ill-gotten gains so that they can be returned to their rightful owners. Taking corporate profits would keep the government running for another 40 days, but that along with confiscating all income above $250,000 would only get us to the end of June. Congress must search elsewhere.
According to Forbes 400, America has 400 billionaires with a combined net worth of $1.3 trillion. Congress could confiscate their stocks and bonds, and force them to sell their businesses, yachts, airplanes, mansions and jewelry. The problem is that after fleecing the rich of their income and net worth, and the Fortune 500 corporations of their profits, it would only get us to mid-August. The fact of the matter is there are not enough rich people to come anywhere close to satisfying Congress’ voracious spending appetite. They’re going to have to go after the non-rich.
Read more: There aren’t enough rich people http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=286217#ixzz1JP3ryH5d%5B/blockquote%5D
Part of the resistance to any tax increase the belief, bourn out of bitter experience that the increased revenue won’t be used to pay down existing debt, but used to generate increased spending, making the problem worse not better.
We also now know that the recent budget battle did not result in a 38 billion saving (an insignificant number in any event). The mostly smoke and mirror deal may have only cut 10 billion, which is chump change. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/264479/republican-budget-victory-shannen-coffin
Already we are suffering from the predicted inflation which the Government is desperately covering up.
I don’t really see anyway out at this point. A Government built on being Santa Clause to everyone cannot reform itself.
For some reason I am reminded of the following bit of dialogue from Apollo 13:
[blockquote]*KEN MATTINGLY*
– Here’s the order of what I want to do. I want to power up guidance,
ECS, communications, warm up the pyros for the parachute and the command
module thrusters.
*CONTROL – WHITE*
– The thrusters are gonna put you overbudget on amps, Ken.
*KEN MATTINGLY*
– Well, they’ve been sitting at 200 hundred below for four days, John,
they gotta be heated.
*CONTROL – WHITE*
– Fine, then trade off the parachutes. Something.
*KEN MATTINGLY*
– Well, if the chutes don’t open, what’s the point?
*CONTROL – WHITE*
– Ken, you’re telling me what you need, I’m telling you what we have to
work with at this point. I’m not making this stuff up.
*KEN MATTINGLY*
– They’re gonna need all these systems, John.
*CONTROL – WHITE*
– We do not have the power, Ken! We just don’t have it.
*KEN MATTINGLY*
– Okay, I’m gonna go back and reorganize the sequencing again and find
more power. Let’s start from scratch. Clear the board.
*CONTROL – WHITE*
[b]- I don’t know where the hell we’re gonna find it.[/b][/blockquote]
Where the power up procedure is what we want to spend and the power available represents the money we actually have.