When is humor no longer funny?

[kandrathe]

Perhaps in the super-long view, tax revenue has increased faster than GDP growth. I would expect that to be the case, since, as America pulls further and further from the subsistence level, the surplus wealth that can be taxed away without breaking the backbone of the economy grows larger and larger. The growth is in any case not terribly great, especially considering how grotesquely the debt has grown. However, we have now moved from the effect of the Bush tax cuts to tracking GDP over 50 years. Is there any evidence that what Bush has done has increased revenue? I don't think there is, at least not in what I've seen. Quite the contrary.

The better question is when has Congress ever elected to pay back the debt? If they trimmed the federal government back to utilitarian levels, they would have plenty of revenue to pay back the borrowing. But, the system is not designed to do the "hard" things, rather it caters to the politically expedient. If a politician doesn't promise and deliver government hand outs to the electorate, then at the next election we will see them replaced with someone who will. I think lowering revenue is a first step to get Congress to live within their means.

Assets? Welfare improvements? Improved lifespan? The average American is better off in many ways that are not directly reflected in GDP in 2005 than 1965.

People in the US pay about 30% of their gross income to governments at all levels. I would say the government has become a heavy burden on the citizen. The government collects as much in taxes now as was the GDP in 1965. Here is my analysis of the problem. The US government made the excuse to dig it's hands into the citizens pocket during WWI and WWII, and it has never been withdrawn. That key moment to demobilize the US from the war was during the 1950's. Rather, the government needed to run around and find new "Wars" on which to spend our money. Whether it be the war on the spread of communism, war on aids, war on drugs, war on poverty, war on illiteracy, or war in Iraq. However noble we might think these causes to be, the "Robin Hoods" of congress reach into our pockets to take our money to spend on whatever "good causes" they feel are justified. The US collects about $3 trillion dollars in revenue, and has a population of about 306,134,000. If just the federal tax revenues were divided equally across the population, it would amount to $8,858.95 a year for each man, woman and child, or $28,441.38 per household. Let's try to compare to a similar European nation like Germany with an almost balanced budget of $13,425,240,000 US dollars (0.44% of the US budget) and a population of about 82,062,200 people(about 1/4 of the US). In another perspective the US collects about 224 times the amount of tax revenue (at just the federal level) for just 4 times the size of the population.