gbaji wrote:
historically the US has for a long time generated tax revenue in the 17-19% of GDP range, while spending in the 18-20% range (so running manageable deficits). Under the Obama administration, spending has jumped to 24-25% range. Absent legislative action to get that spending back under control, the only alternative is to increase taxes in some way (many ways most likely) to bring tax revenue up to match.
The precise tax rates, what is taxed, who is taxed, etc is subject to debate, but the fact is that unless spending is reduced, some combination of new taxes will have to be levied to increase the revenue. And that is revenue levels which we have not seen in the US since WW2. So, when folks on the right complain about high taxes and argue that we need to cut spending and *not* raise taxes, this is what they are basing their arguments on.
Ok, so long term tax revenue has been generated at 17-19% of GDP and spending has been at a rate of 18-20% GDP. This means that overall the US has been either undertaxing or overspending by one percent of GDP if it wants to average a balanced budget.
Now, raising taxes or cutting spending would be interchangeable
if they had equal costs and benefits. This is where a majority of the developed world disagrees with a seeming majority of US citizens. From an international perspective US spending on the commonwealth of America is ridiculously low: not high enough, or spent in the right places to maintain a civil society.
Every other developed, wealthy nation spent the 20th century consolidating oversight and spending at the Federal level, to try their best at smoothing out ghettos, and making sure every person in the nation going through a poor part of their economic cycle has equal minimal life-support, and opportunity to better their education, work and business.
I CANNOT think of a single nation that has been a working, largely-corruption-free democracy for more than 50 years, apart from America, that has "dough-nut" cities, abandoned cities, or abandoned suburbs. Even when their Housing Bubbles have popped, and their markets have crashed. No other democracy but America has urban decay on that scale. And my guess is that the US community is not there for individuals when they have transitions in their lives. Lose your health in America? Bankruptcy. Lose your job in America? Shortly your business is lost from your local supermarket and retailers because you can't buy groceries or new clothes. Your local businesses can't afford so many staff, and lay some off. A downward spiral of increasing community poverty commences, with no help from comfortable communities further afield to arrest the negative feedback.
A couple of plants shut down with 10s of thousands of jobs lost to the city? An economic and social hurricane lays wastes to suburbs, which in turn take down hundreds of thousands of jobs; dozens, hundreds of suburbs.
Everywhere else in the developed world there are failsafe mechanisms. Interrupts and redirects from freefalls to the economic bottom of homelessness, bankruptcy, and guaranteed lifelong welfare dependency. There's a social contract that says that there are TWO things required for personal success and contentment. One is personal effort and work. The other is organised, equally available community assistance when you need it, if you need it. Get laid off? You can afford rent, groceries, bills, healthcare and some clothes, as long as you prove you are looking for work each week. You may lose your house if you have a mortgage when you lose your job, but you don't have to lose everything. Your community isn't going to go go down with you.
The poorest, worst run American schools are poorer and worse than the worst in any other Democracy. The worst educated of the US citizens seem to be more ill informed than the worst in any other democracy, and a boatload of non democracies. You seem to have no universal system for financing tertiary education. So
many Americans can't better themselves because they can't gain education that
reaches up to their intellectual or skills potential. Undereducating and undermedicating your workforce and business owners impoverishes both the private and public sectors of your nation.