The Heritage Foundation publishes a book of federal spending and revenue charts. There is some pretty good information in there. For instance, did you know that even with the war on terror, the Iraq war, and the Afghanistan war, that military spending is quite a bit less than the historical average for the last 45 years? You never hear that from our mainstream media, do you ?
How about those 'tax cuts for the rich' that the Democrats talk about incessantly ? What's the truth there ? Well, the truth is, the higher income folks pay almost all the income taxes. The bottom 50% of wage earners only paid 3% of income taxes. Plus, raising marginal income tax rates on the wealthy doesn't affect tax revenues very much. As the highest tax rate went from 91% in 1960 to 35% today, tax revenues as a percent of GDP remained relatively flat.
And those evil corporate sob's who are plundering the american countryside by providing us all those goods and services we want ? The top corporate tax rate in the USA is the highest in the developed world. Shouldn't we be trying to keep our businesses competitive in the world economy, instead of strapping them down with high taxes and other burdens ? Don't our businesses create the jobs that support our families ? I'm just asking. Certain politicians act like business is the enemy. Insane. I think our politicians are much more the enemy than our businesses.
What about federal spending ? After adjusting for inflation, federal spending has nearly doubled since 1960. During the same time period, Mandatory federal spending has risen over 600%. Mandatory spending is not subject to annual review or the appropriations process. Total federal spending is now over $23,000 yearly per household. I don't kinow about you, but that scares the heck out of me. That is the REAL tax burden, and that's only the federal share. Add it all up and we are probably paying over $30,000 per household. Please think about this when you hear politicians propose these endless new spending programs to try to buy your vote. If you REALLY care about your children, it has to stop, because we are passing our irresponsibility, selfishness, and greed onto those future generations.
So, how do things look for the future ? Regarding spending, not so good. Federal spending has been in the neighborhood of 20% of GDP since the 1960's, but with the looming retirements of the baby boomers, the entitlement programs of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, along with interest on the federal debt, will cause future spending to rise to an estimated 38% of GDP by 2050. This doesn't include all the new spending programs being proposed by certain politicians who are trying to win a certain presidential election in 2008. The old civil rights phrase was Power To The People !. Now, it's Pander To The People !. And boy, do they ever.
And speaking of the federal debt and deficits, our so-called retirement program, Social Security, along with Medicare, is generating 35% of current federal revenue. Imagine what the real deficit would be if the Social Security monies were separate from the general fund and locked away as they should be. Enron never came close to perpetrating a scam as big as Social Security.
In summary, government has grown enormously since the 60's, and we have two parties not doing the job. The Democrats are the tax and spend socialist freaks who will destroy the country by design, and the Republicans are the tax cut but still spend failures who will also destroy the country by selling it off piece by piece. It's pretty apparent that what neither party has the ability to do is CONTROL SPENDING, which, after the war should be our number one priority as a nation, but sadly isn't. Politicians don't win elections by telling america the truth, or at least they haven't so far. The blame for that falls on a lot of shoulders: the dishonest media, corrupt politicians in pursuit of power, special interests looking for handouts…
But mostly, it falls right on the shoulders of the american voting public, who are disengaged.
