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60 years ago taxes may have been too high

You should account in your theory somewhere for the fact that in constant dollars per capita, federal total revenue has gone up 3x over the last 60 years. So maybe we're actually on average being required to pay 3x as much as we used to for a not significantly improved "product" from the federal government.

But don't worry, spending measured the same way over the same time period has gone up almost 4x

The federal deficits aren't a revenue problem, they're a spending problem. Congress spends more and in the process the government manages to waste more.

Good thing we've actually doubled total federal government revenue since the early 80s (per capita and inflation adjusted, so no wiggle room on the numbers), right?

It's just that Congress manages to keep spending even more over time. The problem has nothing to do with revenue nor with tax cuts, it's an unwillingness to actually keep federal spending from increasing.

So no, a tax cut isn't stupid. We're paying way too much, especially compared to past decades. Not holding down spending is stupid. The spending per person in constant dollars is crazy high.

Your "facts" are wrong and so is your opinion.

For example, adjusted for inflation, the average Pell grant was $2,420 in 1996 and $3,740 in 2016. The max was $3,790 in 1996 and $5,820 in 2016. So Pell grants per student have significantly increased over the last 20 years, hardly "hacked and slashed".

Also, teachers don't "have" to spend their money for school supplies, although some do anyway. Most teachers send home a list to parents of what they want them to donate, which is also ridiculous, but what do you expect when you have a Democratic Party run government institution? Lots of wasteful spending on non-essentials, like diversity administrators.

As for Kansas, well, here's total direct revenue for the last 10 years for Kansas. The only portion with a big decline after the Kansas tax cuts in 2011-12 were capital gains-related revenue, a result of the change in the federal capital gains rate, caused by President Obama’s forced expiration of some of the Bush tax cuts. The Kansas tax cuts themselves are estimated to have only affected at most 1.5% of Kansas total revenue, hardly a drop in the bucket and certainly nothing to panic about.

Considering that the 2017 annual US tax revenue is $1.9 trillion, calling 6 trillion dollars of debt means big problems for the US.

According to that link annual US tax revenue is $3,340.4 trillion. Income tax is not the only Federal tax revenue as that table makes painfully obvious.

But your point is well taken, it is a good thing that the Republicans cut tax revenue further in December so that debt well pile up even faster. MAGA!

Foreign nations don't own all the US debt. Most of the debt is actually borrowed against the future value of social security, or some such financial nonsense.

Honestly I don't understand how it works but as of February only $6trillion or so is owed to foreign countries.

Considering that the 2017 annual US tax revenue is $1.9 trillion, calling 6 trillion dollars of debt means big problems for the US.

Bullshit. Per capita inflation-adjusted government revenue may dip occasionally during a recession, but it's up tremendously over time. Can't blame this on a lack of revenue. The MTA has it's own sources of funds, anyway. It's not supposed to depend on the Federal government.

Even The New York Times acknowledges that this is a political issue, one which Democrat Cuomo is mostly to blame for.

The real scandal is that NY's Subway costs more to build an operate than just about anywhere else. Their labor cost is $140K/year/worker on _average_. They also run two people per train, compared to one pretty much anywhere else and they still manage to have their crews spend less time working vs. deadheading.

Face it, this is the natural result of government worker unions combined with complicit politicians. The politicians and their cronies and allies make money and the public gets screwed as they suck the subway system dry.

If you want to fix it, then remove all the union rules and privatize it. I know, will never happen, because certain folks have too much political power in NYC.

Here's federal government spending per capita in constant dollars. You'll notice it only levels out or decreases when there is a Republican Congress and a Democratic President.

Congress controls the budget. When there is a Republican President and a Democratic Congress, Congress spends more, but they work with the President to fund some of his priorities.

When there is a match between Congress and the President's party, they spend more.

So a more accurate statement would be that Democrats always spend more. Republicans also spend more, except when there is a Democratic Party President.

Oh, and it's completely a spending problem. Revenue (i.e. taxes) per capita in constant dollars has also increased 3x over the last 60 years and is at record highs, despite the occasional dip based primarily on how the economy is doing and tax law changes. It's just that as much as the federal government has increased tax revenue over the years, Congress has managed to spend even more. So let's work on cutting the spending, or at least slowing down the growth!

California's debt passed $400 billion under Moonbeam, and the deficit is back. But we'll tax more and borrow more, that'll fix it! Never mind that California has the highest poverty rate and is firmly in the bottom half in terms of educational quality. At least we get warnings that just about everything can cause cancer!

The Federal government also just (yet again!) took in record levels of revenue. Of course, it also still spends more than ever. You may notice from those charts the tremendous increase in government revenue per person over time... and the even larger increase in government spending per person over the same time period.

"If we want these things, we have to be willing to spend less on other stuff we don't need."

In terms of borrowing money, Federal government spending per capita in constant dollars has increased by 4x over the last 60 years. During the same time, federal government income per capita in constant dollars has increased by 3.5x.

The deficit is a result of government spending growing much faster than the increase in revenue has increased. It can't be attributed to less revenue because there is way more tax revenue over time. Saying revenue levels is why the debt is being added to is ridiculous. The government is borrowing money to pay for excessive government spending.

So yeah, let's reduce the debt by cutting spending back to say, per capita inflation adjusted levels of just 12 years ago and we can reduce the debt by a couple of Trillion dollars every year, but whining about a mouse of tax cuts when the elephant in the room is spending just discredits your position.

The expiration of some of the tax cuts is a budget rules gimmick to be able to use reconciliation in 2017. No one expects them to actually expire because there is bipartisan support for renewing them. That already played out once with the Bush tax cuts and Obama. The people reporting otherwise are those trying to come up with partisan talking points. It makes it pretty obvious where you get your opinions from.

The top 1% already pay more federal income taxes than the bottom 90% pay. If you're going to cut Federal income taxes, without a lot of contortions (some of which they did include in this bill for that very purpose), the people who actually pay the majority of taxes are likely to pay less taxes.

In terms of borrowing money, Federal government spending per capita in constant dollars has increased by 4x over the last 60 years. During the same time, federal government income per capita in constant dollars has increased by 3.5x.

The deficit is a result of government spending growing much faster than the increase in revenue has increased. It can't be attributed to less revenue because there is way more tax revenue over time. Saying "we are borrowing money to give it away to the ultra rich" is ridiculous. We're borrowing money to pay for excessive government spending.

P.S. Your personal attacks are completely off the mark and appear to be mostly projection on your part....

The whole premise is based on a false assumption, that the way to determine if taxes are high or low is by comparing levels between countries. Which is made doubly-ridiculous by not even comparing the total taxes, but just by picking some of them out. It's like saying, "Are you short? We compared your family's average height to the NBA and guess what, you're not that tall!" Not very meaningful.

You can just as easily compare current tax revenues to the same country over time and look at total taxes being collected from people, but then you'd have to notice that total per capita inflation adjusted taxes have increased exponentially over time.

When someone is cherry picking the data to exclude what's easily available online to anyone and include non-relevant factors for a fact, then you have to be just a little suspicious that they're motivations are something other than just informing people.

Are total taxes high or low? Relative to what? The same country in the past? United States vs. Europe? Vs. Venezuela? Vs. Japan? Who cares if they are high or low compared to say, South Africa. There are way too many other differences to make that comparison meaningful. The best comparison is to compare the same country to itself over time. That still excludes other changes locally over time, but at least the residents of that country are likely to at least understand those.

It's not just the trade deficit, it's the spending we have to support as well. Even though the Federal Government took more than $10,000 per man, woman, and child (about $26,400 per worker - about $13.20 per hour worked in the US), it still spent $1,423,000,000,000 more than it took in (an additional $5.69 per hour worked). We have a LOT of Government to support - there are career politicians and crony capitalists to support after all!

Sources: number of workers, 124.73 million. Federal revenues: $3.3 trillion. Federal debt added FY2016: $1.423 trillion

In reality, we haven't had tax cuts, either. In 2016, Federal, State, and Local Governments will combine to raise $23,523 per US citizen. In 1990, that revenue was $7751. In 1957, that revenue was $716 (and that was also the last year we ran an actual surplus, we did not add to the debt). When you adjust for inflation you'll find the various Governments are pulling about 3 times the tax revenue now, as they did in 1957, and close to double what they did in 1990, on a per-capita basis.

What happened was that tax rates were monkeyed with, but exemptions that used to be allowed were dropped or heavily modified, and the result was a massive increase in the effective tax rate - witnessed by the massive rise in inflation-adjusted revenues per capita. The Governments today are fed 3 times what they had in 1957, and even so they combine to add over $1.5 trillion in debt just this year (don't let the reports fool you; the Federal Government is running a $1.3 trillion deficit this year, based upon the increase in the national debt). So even with 3 times the amount of funds - spending has skyrocketed even faster, building up massive debts.

There have been no effective tax cuts - there have been effective tax increases. That's the sad reality - that so many buy into the claims of tax cuts, while at the same time believing our Federal Government is only running a deficit 1/4 of what it actually is.

In reality, we haven't had tax cuts, either. In 2016, Federal, State, and Local Governments will combine to raise $23,523 per US citizen. In 1990, that revenue was $7751. In 1957, that revenue was $716 (and that was also the last year we ran an actual surplus, we did not add to the debt). When you adjust for inflation you'll find the various Governments are pulling about 3 times the tax revenue now, as they did in 1957, and close to double what they did in 1990, on a per-capita basis.

What happened was that tax rates were monkeyed with, but exemptions that used to be allowed were dropped or heavily modified, and the result was a massive increase in the effective tax rate - witnessed by the massive rise in inflation-adjusted revenues per capita. The Governments today are fed 3 times what they had in 1957, and even so they combine to add over $1.5 trillion in debt just this year (don't let the reports fool you; the Federal Government is running a $1.3 trillion deficit this year, based upon the increase in the national debt). So even with 3 times the amount of funds - spending has skyrocketed even faster, building up massive debts.

There have been no effective tax cuts - there have been effective tax increases. That's the sad reality - that so many buy into the claims of tax cuts, while at the same time believing our Federal Government is only running a deficit 1/4 of what it actually is.

In reality, we haven't had tax cuts, either. In 2016, Federal, State, and Local Governments will combine to raise $23,523 per US citizen. In 1990, that revenue was $7751. In 1957, that revenue was $716 (and that was also the last year we ran an actual surplus, we did not add to the debt). When you adjust for inflation you'll find the various Governments are pulling about 3 times the tax revenue now, as they did in 1957, and close to double what they did in 1990, on a per-capita basis.

What happened was that tax rates were monkeyed with, but exemptions that used to be allowed were dropped or heavily modified, and the result was a massive increase in the effective tax rate - witnessed by the massive rise in inflation-adjusted revenues per capita. The Governments today are fed 3 times what they had in 1957, and even so they combine to add over $1.5 trillion in debt just this year (don't let the reports fool you; the Federal Government is running a $1.3 trillion deficit this year, based upon the increase in the national debt). So even with 3 times the amount of funds - spending has skyrocketed even faster, building up massive debts.

There have been no effective tax cuts - there have been effective tax increases. That's the sad reality - that so many buy into the claims of tax cuts, while at the same time believing our Federal Government is only running a deficit 1/4 of what it actually is.

Are you sure? I also did some quick math and came to a different conclusion, that we would probably *save* money.

Adult population of the U.S.(rounded up): 246,000,000

Gross Federal Tax Revenue of the U.S.: 3.3 trillion

Cost of providing all adults 1800/month: 443 billion

THINGS YOU COULD GET RID OF:
food stamps: 74 billion
soc sec ( just pensions ): 52 billion
Unemployment Insurance : 520 billion ( says CNN )

#http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/99-total-population-by-child-and-adult#detailed/1/any/false/869,36,868,867,133/39,40,41/416,417

http://www.cbpp.org/research/p...

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue...

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/2...

Replace it with higher income taxes. You get the mean-testing but in the income tax rather then the minimum income.

Apparently Social Insurance Taxes are $1.5 trillion http://www.usgovernmentrevenue... That is a chunk of money going to something that is replaced.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue...

Below we see the usual attempt to declare that the actual data is misleading, instead we need to express it as a percentage of something else (Because the actual data tells the truth)

http://www.factcheck.org/2013/...

I have a degree in Business Economics from Northern Arizona University and am the owner of a small software development business.

In my opinion cries for more spending on education by the folks on the left has nothing to do what so ever with the quality of education, and everything to do with greed. The NEA and NTA are large contributors to the Democratic Party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... -- and thanks to Citizens United, we'll never know for sure how much dark money they contribute. The cycle works something like this:

Politician cozies up to the NEA/NTA and promises some favor if they donate money (openly, or to his PAC)

NEA/NTA give the money, which they have taken from the members, that are paid from the public trough.

Politician get elected and repays the bribe, er, contribution by doing something the NEA/NTA wants. Thanks to Citizens United the dark money given by the NEA/NTA is not reported.

After years and years and years this cozy incestuous little system creates a scenario where so many promises have been made, that the unfunded liabilities to pay for these perks and benefits far exceeds what the taxpayers will ever, possibly be able to pay for. Every possible dime gets cut from actual education, the bulk of the money is going to the administrators, or being extracted from the teachers in the form of dues, that's being returned to the greedy party apparatus. In many states, one either joins the Union or does not get a job. It's legalized extortion combined with legalized money laundering, and it is wrong on so many levels.

This is one of thousands of examples, both parties setup these little money laundering machines to feed their greed. I picked the NEA/NTA because this thread is about education, and it's blatant theft that is easy to verify. Just look at what we spend per pupil .vs. the results we get back and ask yourself WHY?

So when a political party, or a politician, wants to raise taxes in order to pay for something, and uses highly charged populist emotional rhetoric, one should be very, very, very suspicious of the motive. I would put it to you that some sixty percent of the local, state, and federal budgets represents this kind of crap, as opposed to giving we the people a fair value for the taxes we pay.

How do we fix this? We stand up and say ENOUGH is ENOUGH. We demand zero based budgeting for all local, state, and federal budgets, each and every year. We don't tolerate the foolishness where there is a 5% built in rate of growth in some department's budget, and it only grows 4%, and politicians declare a savings or a surplus. Not spending money you never had is not SAVINGS. We force every local, state, and federal department to be 100% transparent about where ALL the money goes. We demand Citizens United be repealed. We eliminate public sector unions, which have a monopoly over the public work force, abolishing forced unionization for public sector jobs in states that do not have right to work laws. We force government agencies to compete with private enterprise for as many services as possible, in order to incentivize efficiency. We quit throwing money at problems that we are clearly not solving, so many local, state, and federal programs are simply jobs programs, they add no value and accomplish little.

Plenty more good ideas, but I think you get the general sense of things. I am a social progressive and a fiscal conservative, but above all things I am against government greed...

We spent $2.9 trillion (out of $2.5 trillion in revenue) on "mandatory" and defense in 2012. In other words, we were already $400 billion in the red before we even spent a penny on national parks or NASA or roads or any of the other stuff people actually want the government to do. In 2012, all that stuff cost only $615 billion, which is small peanuts compared to the "mandatory" junk. Clearly, all this whining about cutting out little chunks of programs, like the Tea Partiers are doing, is pretty much worthless.

More to the point, they're certainly not talking about cutting "mandatory"+defense by 36%, which is what it actually would have taken in order to balance the budget in 2012. Even Paul Ryan's plan would have an ~$850 billion deficit in 2013 and a ~$525 billion deficit in 2014!

(2012 revenue total came from here; the rest came from here)

Not to mention, of course, I could also cite stuff like this and this....

We are taxed more than enough. Between federal, state, and local, government took one out of every three dollars in this country last year.
  http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_2012USrt_14rs1n

And you think it's still not enough? That's insane.

The problem is the spending, the spending, and of course the spending. We could also stand to reduce the spending a bit.

1) way way back when the income tax was instituted, it was intended that the top tier of earners be the only ones that paid. only ones that paid. Not until the 1950s was the bracket lowered to include ordinary middle income earners.

2) until 1913 there was no income tax at all.

3) trickle down economics has worked like a champ - the flow of wealth has slowed to a trickle - take a look at the above link to see how the bottom 50%'s share of earnings compared to GDP dropped even in boom years while the top 1%'s earnings more than doubled. I think you've summed it up nicely - democracy cannot exist if the rich manipulate the system to increase their wealth at a direct cost to the masses.

And while we're talking GDP, realize that it is largely a meaningless number, since housing is included, and that's certainly not a good that can be exported. They are similar to roads. If you exclude housing, GDP is shrinking at a rather alarming rate.

The real bottom line is deficit spending. There should be none. We should be talking about reducing the debt, not having discussions about how we're going to borrow more money (effectively what the current debate on deficit spending is) The only way to stop it, based on obligations owed, is to raise taxes. Note, from above link, that corporation's tax revenues have declined rapidly over the years and they now pay a mere 1% compared to GDP. No wonder there'sa revenue shortfall.

There's an unmentioned elephant in the room - the entities that pay no federal revenue, and are the one group that the Constitution allows Congress to tax explicitly - the group that imports items into the country. Congress should start there in their efforts to raise revenue. Yes, it would increase the cost of goods, goods not made here that steal american jobs and that add nothing to the federal revenue, thus stealing from those remaining workers twice. Adding a 10-20% tax on goods entering the country would start to cover the federal revenue shortfall. A secondary benefit would be that it would stop the flow of jobs out of the country. Lastly, corporations that have been dodging taxes would start paying them again, directly, as a cost of doing business.

We need a $400 billion budget surplus for at least 30 years to apply directly to the debt. As of 2012, the federal budget is $1.7 trillion short. Taxes need to increase to 1.7 times current levels to keep spending the same... OR spending needs to be reduced.

I don't know about you, but I can't afford to pay a 42% tax level on $44,000 annual income.
It would take that for 40 years to eliminate the debt and maintain current spending levels.

We need less government.

He is right, we collect about 1/3 of GDP from local to fed.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/

So we are in line, and even then our debt is far past 16 trillion if you include state and local debts/bonds.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history

As you can see, revenue only got back to the point that it was in 2000, when pre-Bush tax rates were in effect. You'll also notice from this graph that federal revenue didn't increase at the rate of state and local revenue. To me this coincides with a few things.

1) The housing bubble sent home prices through the roof, which would have generated vast sums of local/state taxes.
2) The government was spending loads of money. Not only were they committing to two wars, they were also spending on public sector workers and other projects. This means more money was paid to private businesses, who in turn paid higher taxes.
3) Tech boom. Cell phones were selling like hotcakes.
4) Unemployment rates dropped, which equated to higher overall tax revenue.

Just goes to show you, Correlation does not imply causation. You'll also notice that government spending was going through the roof at this point in time. In turn, the deficit substantially increased each year. Meaning, much of this new revenue was money that the government paid out, but never completely got back.

It makes you wonder, if all of the above had occurred, except that taxes hadn't been cut, would the debt have doubled during Bush's term? It seems like all of the above stimulus measures would have still been wildly successful with or without tax cuts.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history As you can see, revenue only got back to the point that it was in 2000, when pre-Bush tax rates were in effect. You'll also notice from this graph that federal revenue didn't increase at the rate of state and local revenue. To me this coincides with a few things. 1) The housing bubble sent home prices through the roof, which would have generated vast sums of local/state taxes. 2) The government was spending loads of money. Not only were they committing to two wars, they were also spending on public sector workers and other projects. This means more money was paid to private businesses, who in turn paid higher taxes. 3) Tech boom. Cell phones were selling like hotcakes. 4) Unemployment rates dropped, which equated to higher overall tax revenue. Just goes to show you, Correlation does not imply causation. You'll also notice that government spending was going through the roof at this point in time. In turn, the deficit substantially increased each year. Meaning, much of this new revenue was money that the government paid out, but never completely got back. It makes you wonder, if all of the above had occurred, except that taxes hadn't been cut, would the debt have doubled during Bush's term? It seems like all of the above stimulus measures would have still been wildly successful with or without tax cuts.

ok, 2005 dollars per capita.... federal government revenue has almost doubled. Has it ever been higher? Sure. Over time, has it been increasing, not decreasing? Yeah.

Here's 2005 dollars per capita in government spending, from $4 Trillion to now over $10 Trillion. It's still very obvious that while revenue has gone up over time, spending has just gone up even more.

Still clearly shows that the problem isn't less revenue, it's way, way too much spending. In 2000 we spent 30% less than in 2011 in per capita 2005 dollars. You can't explain that away by anything other than we're experiencing massive spending increases that have no relation to anything but that the feds just want to spend more money.

Let's do a simple test to see if tax cuts are primarily responsible for the deficit. If they are, then the deficits must be a result of revenue decreasing over the years while spending stays the same, right?

Compare US Federal Revenue over time, which has gone from 22% of GDP to 34% of GDP with US Federal Spending over time which has gone steadily upward.

Hmmm, seems pretty obvious that the issue is that spending has gone way up over time. While revenue hasn't quite kept up with the massive spending increases, it's also gone way up over time. So how can you blame tax cuts with a straight face? The fact is that federal government revenue went up after Reagan and Bush's "tax cuts". Congress just managed to spend even more money than they had before.

The people in D.C. think that if you plan to spend way more and then change your plan to increase spending not quite as much, that's a drastic cut.

Here's a modest proposal, how about we cut spending levels to what it was 10 or 20 years ago in the bad old days and then watch as the deficit magically turns into a massive surplus?

One problem with letting D.C. take more of our money is that they just spend it. They have an essentially unlimited list of things people would like them to spend our money on. At some point we have to put our foot down and say they're going to have to prioritize some of it.

Sadly, that doesn't seem to be going to happen anytime soon, since people are just arguing about how much of a spending increase we're going to have and where the extra money's going to be especially increased this year.

The idea that our deficit is caused by some kind of crazy government spending though, is not legitimate. It is completely untrue.

Yeah, because this increasing slope isn't a big indicator of runaway spending or anything: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1990_2017USr_13s1li111mcn_F0t I guess you won't recognize the spending until we go truly hyperbolic, huh?

the Bush tax cuts will be responsible for fifty percent of the total US debt.

The Bush Tax Cuts expired in 2010 via sunset provisions. Now they're the Obama tax cuts. And regardless, they didn't appear to have that big an effect on total revenue: http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_chart_1990_2017USr_13s1li111mcn_F0t

The short-term dip in early 2000-2002 was erased by 2007. The revenue drop in 2009-2010 was caused by the recession, not the Bush tax cuts. Merely undoing them does not guarantee a revenue spike.

Your rates are way too low to pay for the current government.

You need 25% of everything over the poverty line combined with 10% cuts to close the gap.

And then those at the poverty line would still be paying over 12% of their income in state and local taxes, licenses, fees, and excise taxes. Plus more property taxes hidden in their rent.

In 1957, the Federal Government made, in constant dollars, about $2800 per capita. In 2010 it was about $6200 - more than double. Why did I choose 1957? It was the last year we actually had a real surplus, we paid down the debt. In 1957, our Federal Government received less than HALF of what it does now, per capita and in constant dollars, and it actually had a real (not just budget) surplus. And this is when we were building those freeways, not just maintaining them...

The problem is NOT that we don't have enough revenue - it's that the Federal Government has exploded in size and scope. Spending is the problem, not tax revenues.

I'm not an expert, hence the suggestion being qualified as humble, but I think the current tax revenus of the US government would cover the 2006 budget.

Assuming that this is right (could be wrong), were people dying in the streets for lack of government services back then? Is there any crucial reason why the government couldn't survive on a budget equivalent to what it had just a few years ago?

You're pretty close - 2004 is closer to the right answer.
Federal revenue was 2,303.5 billion in 2011.
That is in the ballpark of spending in 2004 which was 2292.84 billion.

What you're missing is change in GDP over that time. The numbers are: $11,788.9b in 2004; $14,958.6b in 2011. So, GDP grew 26.9% so of course you would expect that there would be an increase in government services - it generally takes more resources to run a larger country. Additionally there were a couple of exigent circumstances which played a major part in the increased spending in the intervening years.

The Federal Government is bringing in the same money it did in 1998 and 1999 - even adjusting for inflation

Considering the number of tax breaks we've had over the past 10 years, this quote just set off my ignorance and/or lie detector.

Yep. Ignorance. See those sharp downward spikes there first in 2001ish and then again around 2008?

--Jeremy

Sorry, not ignorance on my part - apparently you mistook my statement of dollars adjusted for inflation for percent of GDP - which is what your reference shows. Now if you look at page 31 of the White House's budget summary, you'll see constant dollars used for revenues. About $2 trillion in 1998, and we're at about $1.92 trillion in 2010. About the same revenue - per the President's own budget report.

The only ignorance on display here is your own inability to comprehend basic English - or your zealotry to uphold some ideological ideal that is apparently wrong.

The Federal Government is bringing in the same money it did in 1998 and 1999 - even adjusting for inflation

Considering the number of tax breaks we've had over the past 10 years, this quote just set off my ignorance and/or lie detector.

Yep. Ignorance. See those sharp downward spikes there first in 2001ish and then again around 2008?

--Jeremy

Is that per capita or total amount? Since the tax rate is the lowest its has ever been since the IRS was formed, I have my doubts about your statement.

It's neither. Is as a percent of GDP. He's not entirely correct though. According to this graph, it hit it's peak in 2000 at 37.19% and 2007 at 37.01%.

They don't have a debt of 10x total federal revenue. From what I can tell the federal government takes in about 2.1 or so trillion dollars. For the debt to be 10x that we would need to have 21 trillion or so in debt. To reach that we would need to increase our current debt by about 50%.

It turns out that "the rich" pay the majority of the taxes.

First you need to define rich and then you need to define tax, but in most terms people think about I suspect this is wrong. Do you have a neutral source?

And let's not restrict it to just US Federal Income Tax, but included all transfers of money from people to government (FICA, sales tax, property tax, various fees whether they are called a tax or not) and I suspect you will be surprised how little "the rich" pay, both absolutely and proportionally.

In any case I think it is wrong to presume that the rich paying large sums in taxes means they are doing something fantastic. Taken to its logical extreme it suggests that a single individual paying 99.99999% of all taxes is a hero to be respected and admired, rather than someone controlling our economic lives with inordinate power over the rest of us.

There have been several times in the history of the USA where the overall tax rate was lowered, and tax revenues went up.

Ahh Reaganomics! Didn't work then and it didn't work with the Bush Tax Cuts either. Actually revenue as a % of GDP is at a 60 year low. Only in unusual circumstances (due more to changes in corruption and tax enforcement) can you hope to see revenue increase when taxes are cut.

There are some people who view the above as a problem; this problem is called "the rich get richer". Even if the poor get richer also, which confuses me.

What's confusing? It's relative worth and there are plenty of psychological experiments to indicate that this is valued by people. Having a flying car isn't a big deal if the rich have spaceships and live to be 1000. I want that too. No one likes to be looked down on.

Historically, the US government has not managed to collect more than 19 or 20 percent of GNP in tax revenue.

That's what you took home from this chart?
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_history

We're the lowest taxed generation since WWII. The highest rate now is 35%, and few pay it. The highest tax bracket in the 90s was 39.6. The highest tax bracket under most of Regan was 50%. Under Nixon was 70%. Kenedy was 91%. Eisenhower was also 91%. The rate coming out of WWII was 94%.

And yet revenue as a percentage of GDP has been increasing all the way up to 2000 (the last decade has many explanations, and I doubt any of them fully capture what really happened) http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/downchart_gr.php?year=1900_2010&units=p&title=Revenue%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP

It's a well understood phenomenon that tax rates and tax revenues are typically not highly correlated.

Fuck you, you piece of shit.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/downchart_gr.php?year=1900_2010&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy12&chart=F0-fed&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s

Right there, in blue and white, using the government's own numbers. Since the end of WWII, revenue as a percent of GDP has touched 20% but never gone above it. Meanwhile, our spending has outstripped our revenue tremendously.

Don't fucking call me a liar when the facts are on my side, asshole.

I could also point out that our government has a record deficit and debt due to the spend happy nature of Bush Jr. deciding to fight two wars and funnel money to his rich friends (Haliburton).

Tu quoque is always a great way to start the day!

This chart shows historic government revenue as a percent of GDP. See that little uptick in 1980? That was the increased revenue resulting from Reagan's tax cuts. So try saying Reagan destroyed the infrastructure with his tax cuts again, I dare you.

Bullshit. In 1940, Federal revenue was only 6.9% of GDP. It shot up to as high as 23.85% at the tail end of WWII, then dropped down again. In the 50s, it averaged around 18.12% of GDP, then went down again until the 90s. The first decade of this century was about the same as the 60s, and higher than the 70s. The last few years it's gone down again, but not by much.

No, the only problem we face is our addiction to spending. It's what's going to destroy this country, if it hasn't already.

Source: http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/downchart_gr.php?year=1920_2013&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy11&chart=F0-fed&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=s

But in the US, the "rich" - to be specific, let's say the top 1% - earned 25% of the wealth and paid 38% of the income taxes. That doesn't sound like "virtually nothing".

You, like many others, have confused wealth with income.

Actually, the text you chose to quote indicates that he is confusing nothing. He was specifically talking about income taxes.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/

On that basis the poor and middle class are massively overtaxed, and the wealthy are drastically undertaxed. Essentially the middle class and lower class are drastically subsidizing the wealthy.

Your link allows the exploration of your claim and it doesn't hold up. For federal taxes, with the exception of the alcohol and tobacco taxes, and social insurance payments, you can see that most revenue sources such as customs, estate taxes, airport/airway excise, highway excise taxes primarily concern upper or middle class folks.

But in the US, the "rich" - to be specific, let's say the top 1% - earned 25% of the wealth and paid 38% of the income taxes. That doesn't sound like "virtually nothing".

You, like many others, have confused wealth with income. The wealthy 1% have over 50% of wealth (top 20% have over 84% of wealth).

http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely%20in%20press.pdf

Also income taxes are not total taxes paid (they are 1/3 of the total US tax base) and the proper measure is total taxes (after transfers) as a percentage of total wealth.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/

On that basis the poor and middle class are massively overtaxed, and the wealthy are drastically undertaxed. Essentially the middle class and lower class are drastically subsidizing the wealthy.

Exactly. So what's more important? Honoring some corrupt and blatantly deceptive pyramid scheme from the last century, which I might add will never be fully honored, or saving the future of the US?

In other words, you want to steal from it because you argue that people like you will steal from it, so we should steal from it.

Whereas I argue that we shouldn't steal from it, because no one is going to steal from it.

I would keep arguing with you, but you're dying because I'll soon shot you in your head to put you of your misery, so I'm just going to shoot you in your head to put you out of your misery. Or something like that.

So we're equating spending reduction with tax increase (excuse me, "secret" tax increases)? Ok. I'd rather "increase my taxes" by reducing spending say by eliminating Social Security, Medicare, and a deep cut in national defense.

Eliminating social security and medicare won't decrease the deficit, you idiot.

You are utterly failing to grasp that eliminating social security and medicare are REVENUE NEUTRAL, because when we eliminate insurance, we eliminate people paying the premiums! It in no way helps the budget at all. (In fact, it harms the budget, because now can't borrow from them anymore, and have to borrow from places we pay interest.)

You really don't grasp that, do you? Social security and Medicare are funded separately. If you cut or remove then, their funding source will correspondingly be decreased. You cannot cut them and have more money for the government!

Unless, as you suggested, their funding source gets merged into the general revenue, then you cut them...which as I pointed out is just a clever backdoor tax increase, and you could do the same thing just by raising taxes and leaving SS and Medicare alone.

Raising taxes gives government incentive to increase spending, something they've demonstrated they eagerly do every year.

Yes, in your delusional world.

In the actual world, every tax decease has resulted in less revenue, and you can only pretend otherwise by generalizing over decades, as I pointed in your lying post about it.

But, hey, we just had another example of it. We cut taxes in 2001.(1) Where's our increased revenue?

Looks like the tax cuts set us back half a decade in growth of the taxes.

Or, for fun, look at this.

1) Yes, I know the 2001 budget was Clinton's, but Bush decided to give back money right after taking office aka, the Bush rebate.

Exactly. So what's more important? Honoring some corrupt and blatantly deceptive pyramid scheme from the last century, which I might add will never be fully honored, or saving the future of the US?

In other words, you want to steal from it because you argue that people like you will steal from it, so we should steal from it.

Whereas I argue that we shouldn't steal from it, because no one is going to steal from it.

I would keep arguing with you, but you're dying because I'll soon shot you in your head to put you of your misery, so I'm just going to shoot you in your head to put you out of your misery. Or something like that.

So we're equating spending reduction with tax increase (excuse me, "secret" tax increases)? Ok. I'd rather "increase my taxes" by reducing spending say by eliminating Social Security, Medicare, and a deep cut in national defense.

Eliminating social security and medicare won't decrease the deficit, you idiot.

You are utterly failing to grasp that eliminating social security and medicare are REVENUE NEUTRAL, because when we eliminate insurance, we eliminate people paying the premiums! It in no way helps the budget at all. (In fact, it harms the budget, because now can't borrow from them anymore, and have to borrow from places we pay interest.)

You really don't grasp that, do you? Social security and Medicare are funded separately. If you cut or remove then, their funding source will correspondingly be decreased. You cannot cut them and have more money for the government!

Unless, as you suggested, their funding source gets merged into the general revenue, then you cut them...which as I pointed out is just a clever backdoor tax increase, and you could do the same thing just by raising taxes and leaving SS and Medicare alone.

Raising taxes gives government incentive to increase spending, something they've demonstrated they eagerly do every year.

Yes, in your delusional world.

In the actual world, every tax decease has resulted in less revenue, and you can only pretend otherwise by generalizing over decades, as I pointed in your lying post about it.

But, hey, we just had another example of it. We cut taxes in 2001.(1) Where's our increased revenue?

Looks like the tax cuts set us back half a decade in growth of the taxes.

Or, for fun, look at this.

1) Yes, I know the 2001 budget was Clinton's, but Bush decided to give back money right after taking office aka, the Bush rebate.

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick.

President Reagan proposed sweeping tax rate reductions during the 1980s. What happened? Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s, and the results are even more impressive when looking at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation).

Firstly, there were no tax cuts for 1983, there was one for 1982. Here is the tax revenue in constant dollars.

1980 728.1
1981 766.6
1982 738.2 *first year of tax cuts*
1983 684.3
1984 730.4
1985 776.6
1986 790.0
1987 854.1
1988 877.3
Wow, that barely kept ahead of inflation. In fact, it looks like it crippled revenue, setting growth back 4 years while the GDP continued to climb.

Just go here.

President Kennedy proposed across-the-board tax rate reductions that reduced the top tax rate from more than 90 percent down to 70 percent. What happened? Tax revenues climbed from $94 billion in 1961 to $153 billion in 1968, an increase of 62 percent (33 percent after adjusting for inflation).

This is deliberate deception. See here. Then stand there argue with a straight face how nice JFK's tax cuts were.

US Federal Government revenue, as a percentage of GDP has been fairly static in the post WWII period, ranging from a high of 21% of GDP to a low of 15% of GDP with upward and downward fluctuations throughout the period. However, absolute revenues have increased from 46 billion in 1946 to 2104.5 billion in 2009. Your post assumes that the increase in GDP that permits the fed to collect vastly increasing revenues over this period has no relation to the drastically reduced taxes (which, curiously, are not reflected in the available data) to which you refer.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/yearrev2009_0.html

US GDP in 1804 was $530M, the cost of the purchase was $15M, or about 3%. One asteroid contains enough metals to pay for the entire shuttle program, we just have to focus our efforts in this area if we want to find a positive ROI =)

You really think I'm a paranoiac? Hmm. Ok, after way too much research I can offer for comparison: California's 2008 revenue was ~$130 billion while Disney's 2008 revenue was ~$38 billion. So, Cali has roughly 3.4 times the revenue of Disney. If we say money = power... does that mean disney has ~1/3 as much power as California? I dunno exactly. Food for thought anyway. Thanks for catching me though. I was thinking big corps. were making way more than that :-)

Well, on the other hand we have Wal*Mart's 2008 revenue of ~$379 billion. Roughly 3 times the revenue of California. Compare that to, say, Missouri's 2008 revenue of ~$35 billion and take what you want from the order of magnitude difference. Hmm... well maybe I'll keep this shiny hat around just in case!