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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (59995)	4/19/2008 12:02:19 PM
From: KyrosL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542528

When did we ever increase taxes to meet more than current expenses. Just one example, please. Clinton's tax increase in 1993 directly resulted in a steady decrease of national debt as a percent of GDP, and, in his final fiscal year, almost completely wiped out the budget deficit (measured honestly without including the SS surpluses). In fact, if Bush had not cut taxes, it was estimated that within 10 years the entire national debt would have been paid off. Greenspan was worried that there would be no Treasury bonds to set risk free interest rates.

To: Lane3 who wrote (59995)	4/19/2008 9:57:58 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542528

Rising wages are not the key path to more tax revenue. They are a drop in the bucket, at best Tax revenues mostly come from wages. By wages I mean salaries, self-employement income, i.e. individual incomes as opposed to corporate income. When wages rise, tax revenues go up correspondingly. Corporate income taxes, OTOH, are a relatively small part of the revenue pie. Likewise for inheritance taxes and LT capital gains. So I don't know where you get this notion. Pay off the debt through taxes Combination of raising taxes on the top two brackets and reducing military spending are the easiest options available to reverse the growth of debt. Debt much too big for taxes alone. Our US debt levels may be too big period. Everything is lining up for a traumatic debt spiral. Demographics, i.e. 78 million retirees, are against us. Most people have saved so little for retirement that expert estimates are that the average retiree will greatly reduce his/her discretionary spending. So I can't see where the economic growth in this country is going to come from. Everyone talks about US exports growing. But the truth is that a lot of what we export are products and/or services that those countries will soon be producing for themselves. Plus we're having to debase our currency to make those exports attractive. There's a limit to that. The tragedy is that all of this was so predictable. I have to believe that the Bushies just couldn't care less about it all.