Posted on 04/30/2010 7:29:57 AM PDT by ReleaseTheHounds
According to a recent GWU Battleground poll, 74 percent of likely voters are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the current level of government spending. And 58 percent think the level of spending is unsustainable.
Is the public right? Is Washington bankrupting America? Some facts from the video:
Spending per household has risen over 40 percent in the last 10 years – and is set to do so again in the next 10 – pushing debt (and interest on the debt) to unprecedented levels. But that’s just a result of past spending.
Add in our government’s $106 trillion in future spending commitments – that cannot be paid for – and it becomes clear that our government’s spending is setting the country down a path toward bankruptcy.
We can solve it, but politicians will have to make tough choices.
Increasing taxes can’t do the trick ($106 trillion is equivalent to taking all of the taxable income from every American nine times over), nor is it fair to saddle taxpayers with a problem created by government irresponsibility.
We need real spending reform. Merely returning to the spending per household levels of the 1990s would balance the budget in three years.
Yet, policies under Bush and Obama have made the problem worse, not better: budget cuts that pale in comparison to spending increases, more lobbyists, more earmarks, expanded spending on autopilot programs like Social Security and Medicare, and savings gimmicks that don’t amount to meaningful change.
Reform can only be achieved if the public is informed and engaged. You can start by doing the following:
(1) Share this video with at least 5 friends, family and coworkers.
(2) If you haven’t already, subscribe to receive emails from us (you’ll be first to receive our videos and other timely info about economic policy).
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(Excerpt) Read more at bankruptingamerica.org ...
They have already bankrupted us. Now they are hiding the fact as long as possible.
Something about bears and woods comes to mind.
The baby boomer generation is retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day and will continue to do so for the next 20 years. By 2030, one in five Americans will be 65 or older, twice what it is today. And by 2030, there will be just two workers for every retiree.
The entitlement programs alone will consume over 70% of the budget by 2060 if they are not changed and that is without the effects of Obamacare, which will actually increase the costs of these programs.
Nice video, I liked the background music; thank you for posting it.
Anthony Sanders at George Mason University testified in the House Financial Services Committee yesterday. He stated that:
Households making $250,000 or more per year in income are only 2% of the households, yet the Obama Administration has chosen them to bear the lion’s share of the $108 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Sanders estimated that each household making $250,000 or more is on the hook for $47 million EACH.
EACH!!!!!!
I can't say that I've read all the details, but I know that Paul Ryan's "Road Map" addresses all of the issues. I'm sure the fair-tax crowd around here will dismiss that because it doesn't embrace the fair tax plan -- and maybe the fair tax is the way to go if there was ever a consensus to reform the entire tax code.
I would like to see the Road Map given more attention and consideration. Ryan will participate in the "Debt Commission" -- and I'm sure he'll be the smartest guy in that room. But I'll be amazed if that Commission gives his thought process consideration because I'm sure they'll primarily focus on "more taxes" as the solution to everything when we know it will be the solution to nothing.
As this video points out, if we just went back to the Federal Spending levels we had in the late 1990s, we would be in much better shape. And how much benefit has the additional federal spending been to us? That's a rhetorical question.
Impossible. The entitlement programs are growing because the baby boom cohort is retiring at the rate of 10,000 a day for the next 20 years. We are an aging population.
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