Balance the budget? Surely you jest. Here's your bill: Extra Taxes Required From Each Taxpayer to Erase the Deficit | Mercatus
This chart by Mercatus Center senior research fellow, Veronique de Rugy uses data from the Tax Foundation to examine the increases in taxes necessary to balance the annual federal budget in each of the next 5 years. This year alone, taxes would have to increase by an average of $10,000 per taxpayer in order to pay for all of the federal government's spending. Note that while the values of these tax increases trend downward over time (from $9,825 in 2010 to $4,752 in 2015) this decline is based on Office of Management Budget projections, which are famously unreliable.
But it's not bad news for everyone. Here, from the same source is the big boom in government jobs as all the other jobs that are supposed to pay for them evaporated.
Trends in public and private employment since the start of the recession. Government employment has increased by 590,000 while the private sector has lost nearly 8 million jobs since the start of the Great Recession. Since the passage of the Recovery Act, these trends have continued: the private sector has lost an additional 2.7 million jobs, or 2.5% of total private employment, while state and federal governments have continued to grow, adding an additional 400,000 jobs.Posted by Vanderleun at June 29, 2010 10:47 AM
I don't know why it should cost a cent of taxes to balance the budget. Farm Subsidies wipe that grin off your face, I am looking at you. Department of Education, dead. Department of Labor , dead. Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, all dead. Need more to go. I can find them and kill them.
Posted by: Fat Man at June 29, 2010 1:25 PMCan't do that. Government workers are more likely to vote for people who will give them more free stuff, bigger raises and other bennies. You can't go around pissing off your potential voters.
Posted by: pdwalker at June 30, 2010 9:10 AM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.
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