Fiscal Commision Co-Chairs' Deficit Reduction Proposal

[grumpyMSG]

It's all just a bunch of

Untitled.jpg (10.11 KiB) Viewed 1746 times

I love watching people get in these discussions with some
and some
both sides use numbers that support their arguments, each from a source that is "Unbiased and has no agenda" and the other side is completely wrong.

[gunderwood]

@Kreutz - hate to break it to you but around 60% of our taxes go just to pay the interest on debt. That plus your 40% only leaves 0%, but wait!!!

You're not considering all of the money we borrow...when you add all that in and run the numbers defense is number 3 or 4 on the list...social programs make the top cut.

Progressives will tell you that 40% of your taxes go to defense...thats a partial truth...you have to consider the total budget - MOST of which is borrowed. Income taxes make up only a fraction of the total budget and around 60% of that goes just to pay the interest on outstanding debt....

Yeah, I forgot to rave about the interest we pay, my bad. The elephant in the living room. We should pay damn near no interest for what is (was?) such a safe investment.
Unless someone can reanimate the corpse of Old Hickory and put him in charge (armed with an actual hickory stick to mercilessly beat Congressmen and Senators of course), the debt and deficits aren't going anywhere.

The interest for 2009 was approx. $187B of a $3.5T budget and collected taxes were $2.1T. That makes interest 5.3% and 8.9% respectively. For 2010, the interest is estimated at $188B with a total budget of $3.7T and collected taxes at $2.16T. That makes interest 5.0% and 8.7% respectively. For 2011, the interest is estimated to balloon to $250B with a budget of $3.8T and collected taxes of $2.57T. That makes interest 6.6% and 9.7% respectively. The 2011 estimates are based on the increasing debt and the assumption that collected taxes will rebound with the economy and the increased tax rates (if the "cuts" are not extended). I think they are being optimistic about real growth. Of course they will make real growth look much better by way under-counting inflation, but that is a different story.

The point is that the interest on the debt is no where near 60% of the budget or collected taxes. It is way to high and we have too much debt, but if the interest accounted for 60% we'd be sunk economically (unless the Federal government and taxes were cut so drastically that the budget/collected taxes were only $400-425B...good luck with that one).

Forgot to post my reference: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default ... tables.pdf

[gunderwood]

It's all just a bunch of

Untitled.jpg

I love watching people get in these discussions with some
and some
both sides use numbers that support their arguments, each from a source that is "Unbiased and has no agenda" and the other side is completely wrong.

Numbers don't lie, people lie. Numbers are unbiased, but people are not. You have to look at the data and understand what it represents.

[zephyp]

The interest for 2009 was approx. $187B of a $3.5T budget and collected taxes were $2.1T. That makes interest 5.3% and 8.9% respectively. For 2010, the interest is estimated at $188B with a total budget of $3.7T and collected taxes at $2.16T. That makes interest 5.0% and 8.7% respectively. For 2011, the interest is estimated to balloon to $250B with a budget of $3.8T and collected taxes of $2.57T. That makes interest 6.6% and 9.7% respectively. The 2011 estimates are based on the increasing debt and the assumption that collected taxes will rebound with the economy and the increased tax rates (if the "cuts" are not extended). I think they are being optimistic about real growth. Of course they will make real growth look much better by way under-counting inflation, but that is a different story.

The point is that the interest on the debt is no where near 60% of the budget or collected taxes. It is way to high and we have too much debt, but if the interest accounted for 60% we'd be sunk economically (unless the Federal government and taxes were cut so drastically that the budget/collected taxes were only $400-425B...good luck with that one).


Forgot to post my reference: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default ... tables.pdf

Ok, so its less but a matter of perspective...

Here's my source... http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Funny you would trust anything posted on whitehouse.gov...

[gunderwood]

The interest for 2009 was approx. $187B of a $3.5T budget and collected taxes were $2.1T. That makes interest 5.3% and 8.9% respectively. For 2010, the interest is estimated at $188B with a total budget of $3.7T and collected taxes at $2.16T. That makes interest 5.0% and 8.7% respectively. For 2011, the interest is estimated to balloon to $250B with a budget of $3.8T and collected taxes of $2.57T. That makes interest 6.6% and 9.7% respectively. The 2011 estimates are based on the increasing debt and the assumption that collected taxes will rebound with the economy and the increased tax rates (if the "cuts" are not extended). I think they are being optimistic about real growth. Of course they will make real growth look much better by way under-counting inflation, but that is a different story.

The point is that the interest on the debt is no where near 60% of the budget or collected taxes. It is way to high and we have too much debt, but if the interest accounted for 60% we'd be sunk economically (unless the Federal government and taxes were cut so drastically that the budget/collected taxes were only $400-425B...good luck with that one).


Forgot to post my reference: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default ... tables.pdf

Ok, so its less but a matter of perspective...

Here's my source... http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Funny you would trust anything posted on whitehouse.gov...

Ah, I assume you were looking at the total interest line ($3.2T) vice the interest on debt line for 2010 ($200B)? I like that clock and illustrates a few critical things.

Monetary base...$2T
M2 base...$8.7T
Treasurey securities...$2T
Currency and credit derivatives...$577T
The mortgage bubble was nothing compared to those derivatives.

Liberals love to point out that our income tax rates are lower than Europe, but never like to compare the actual total tax rate. We have many more taxes and "fees" they don't pay. This year so far...

US Federal spending: $3.5T
Federal deficit: $1.35T
Total government spending: $6.7T
GDP: $14.6T

Thus, so far the total government spending is 45% of all the economic activities in the US! Those free markets really are a problem.
The government is taxing, in one form or another, $5.35T ($6.7T - 1.35T) from the economy. That equates to an average tax rate of 36.6% of the GDP. If the tax cuts expire (approx. $3.7T/10 years averages to $370M a year), that would push the percentage to 39.2% (($6.7T - 1.35T + $370M)/14.6T). Yes, I know that isn't technically correct, but it is a first order estimate. Comparing us to the highest in the world:

Sweden is considered one of the countries with the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in the world. According to the 2010 edition of the publication of taxation trends in the European Union, issued by Eurostat, the tax-to-GDP ratio in Sweden in 2008 was 47.1 percent. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010 ... weden.html

Inflation based spending is still government spending, but it isn't all "stolen" from the citizen since so many others hold dollars. Thus, the actual tax rate for the US is between 36.6% and 45% for 2010 compared to Sweden's 47.1% for 2008 (I couldn't find anything newer, but the trend was falling, just like ours would have been, because of the global recession). We aren't some low tax haven. We pay just as much as most of the Europeans do, it just isn't in income taxes. We spread ours out to nickel and dime the citizens to death. Still don't believe it? Take a look at these tax to GDP rates for 2008: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ ... -BP-EN.PDF

Norway 42.2%
United Kingdom 37.3 %
Spain 33.1%
France 42.8%
Greece 32.6%
Germany 39.3%

The averages for the EU are:
EU27 39.3%
EA16 39.7%

Ignoring deficit spending and inflation, the US is 36.6% or about 3% behind the EU. With the coming Obama tax increase, we will be on par with Europe for tax burden. Hardly a recipe for prosperity, after all, it takes 700M Europeans to approximately match our GDP with a mere 300M Americans.

[zephyp]

Ah, I assume you were looking at the total interest line ($3.2T) vice the interest on debt line for 2010 ($200B)? I like that clock and illustrates a few critical things.

No, actually I was relying on something I thought I once saw. But I guess I membered wrongly. Getting old aint all its cut out to be...