TigerPaw...here is a category of tax dollars that hits well above my threshold level....
washingtonpost.com
Over the next 10 years, the administration projects that the budget will continue to eat into Social Security and Medicare payroll tax revenue every year, even if the budget overall returns to surplus. This means the goal of paying off the nation's public debt -- which a year ago appeared possible in the next five years -- has been indefinitely deferred. The failure to reduce the debt as planned will force the government to pay an additional $1 trillion in interest costs over the next decade.
Interest costs = taxes [pay 'em now or pay 'em later...along with an extra Trillion. That's somebody elses problem.]
Lot's of items in that link, but the closing three paragraphs were interesting...
Meanwhile, the president is pushing to make his signature tax cut permanent beyond its current 2010 expiration date. But analysts were struck by the fact that the administration chose to leave out the one provision that would affect millions of taxpayers -- extending relief from the alternative minimum tax. Temporary relief from the minimum tax, included in the tax bill, expires in 2005, just when the administration says surpluses will return.
The administration concedes that without changes, 39 million taxpayers in 2012, compared with 1 million taxpayers in 2001, will have to pay the higher tax, which was originally aimed at the very rich. Virtually every tax analyst says this problem will have to be addressed soon. But fixing it will reduce federal revenue by more than $200 billion over the next decade -- and the president's budget already contains nearly $700 billion in tax cuts.
Over the next five years, in projections before policy proposals are taken into account, the White House also anticipates receiving $130 billion in higher revenue while spending $80 billion less on Medicare than projected by the congressional analysts. The forecasts are so tight over the next few years that such subtle disputes could mean the difference between deficits and surpluses.
Fascinating that the budget turns up in 2005. [I promise next year things will be good, vote for G.W. Bush.] And that $130B and $80B discrepency with the CBO? Any bets that means add another $210B to the national debt; plus interest of course?
and then there's this little budget process improvement...
The administration yesterday abandoned year-by-year projections over the next decade, arguing they were unreliable.
Any bets that the out-year estimates don't look very pretty? If we don't look, there's no problem.
Scam artists!
jttmab |
