Posted on 02/17/2011 6:34:32 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Given all the spillovers involved, the big policy question for the world for the next few years is whether the U.S. can get its fiscal house in order. A look at the last 50 years of the U.S. government’s taxing and spending (see chart) suggests it can. But it will take time.
Check taxes first. These are labelled “revenues” on the chart and in the U.S. budget historical tables on which they’re based. That’s because taxes aren’t the only form of government income. There are other compulsory fees, as well. But receipts are mainly taxes. (You can download what seems like terabytes of data on the budget from the official website. One spreadsheet of budget items comes to 5,000 lines. Go wild!)
The most surprising thing about the chart is how for the longest time taxes were rock-steady as a share of U.S. GDP. From the mid-1960s to the end of the Reagan administration, they varied just a little from year to year and recession to recession, but were never less than 17.1% of GDP and never more than 19.7%. As for Mr. Reagan himself, whose 100th birthday was toasted even by those who roasted him when he was alive, he did cut tax rates early in his administration, but after that initial decline, tax revenues were pretty much flat, and stayed more or less flat under his successor, George Herbert Walker Bush. In fact, they went down slightly under the first president Bush, even after he (infamously and fatally for his political career) raised rates, but that’s probably more the result of a soft economy than a policy change.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinion.financialpost.com ...
Not until we stop electing complete communist morons to Congress.....................
These people cheerfully vote for whatever politician will give to them the biggest chunk of money from the productive class. As long as the political clout of these useless people continues to grow, the USA will always have a problem taking the fiscally correct approach to doing things.
From what I've read about Canada, they do not appear to have this demographic problem, though I would ask our Canadian FRiends to correct me if this is not the case.
So it’s gotten so bad be have to follow Canada’s lead?
So all we need to do is find a bunch of Natural Gas and Crude Oil, and sell it to Canada. Then we can balance our budget.
Was Canada over $14 Trillion and counting in the hole? =.=
Bookmark.
Not a bad Idea when it comes to energy:
In 2006, Canada produced 19.3 quadrillion British Thermal Units (Btu) of total energy, the fifth-largest amount in the world.
Almost all of Canada's energy exports go to the United States, making it the largest source of U.S. energy imports.
Canada is consistently among the top sources for U.S. oil imports, and it is the largest source of U.S. natural gas and electricity imports.
In other words Canada has developed it's energy resources, quite the opposite of the US. We don't drill for oil and gas, we don't mine our vast amounts of coal, nor do we build nuclear.
Canada must be doing something right if you compare the US dollar to the Canadian dollar over the last 12 years:
On January 1, 1999, $1.00 US Dollar was worth $1.52 in Canadian money
On January 1, 2011, $1.00 US Dollar was worth $0.99 in Canadian money
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/EXCAUS.txt
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