by Lore » Sat 16 Apr 2011, 12:17:37
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'F')ederal tax revenues have never exceeded 21% of GDP at any point in US history (with the possible exception of WW2 but you can't really call that sustainable).
So we're left with a choice, cut entitlement spending or raise taxes to their highest levels in history and keep on rising them year after year.
Math > Politics.
We could have also left out a couple of wars that added over a trillion to the deficit, but I believe the oppositions proposal is to end Bush tax cuts and bring us back to the level of marginal tax rate from the Clinton Presidency. To get to the highest rate in history, you would have to go back to 1945 where rates reached 94% (on all income over $200,000). Funny, how costly wars are. Of course back then the rates had to be that much higher as there were far fewer people per capita earning that figure.
There really isn't that big of a problem with SS, if the government would stop raiding it. Some minor modifications and the program would be solvent for many decades to come.
Medicare and Medicaid are different issues, but rather then cut the costs from the benefits side, a more judicious and logical approach would be to attack the inflated and burdensome costs from the pharmaceutical, drug, hospitals, insurance and legal profession. Of course that would be contrarian to big business interests.
I also find the Ryan budget plan rather sly in keeping the status quo for the above 55 crowd, which just so happens to be the strongest block of voters. However, I doubt very much that grandpa and grandma will want to throw their sons and daughters under the bus. In my view the whole plan is just a further continuation of an already out of kilter redistribution of wealth towards the top, nothing more.
The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
... Theodore Roosevelt
