We Can Balance the Budget. Right Now – No Tricks, No Gimmicks, and No B.S.

Flopping Aces ^ | 04-29-12 | Brother Bob

[Starman417]

We've got a federal debt problem, and our political leaders are not taking it seriously. Granted, Paul Ryan was ready to step up and give us a budget that will eventually get us back on the path to fiscal solvency, but even his suggestions were promptly scorched by our president, whose own budget proposal was such an excellent idea that it got rejected unanimously by the Democrat controlled Senate. One of the biggest problems with getting any kind of spending reforms in Washington is that to most people the federal debt is some distant issue, or worse, something that can and should be paid by somebody else. I want to change that.

I had previously written a post showing how we could spread the pain of paying off the existing national debt by spreading it across every adult taxpayer in the United States. It was a quick, back of the envelope estimate that I even admitted at the time was flawed and a number of commenters rightly called me on it. I've gone back and made a few tweaks, such as adding an additional bracket for earners making over $5M per year, and making the brackets more progressive. Here is what I came up with:

(Side note: Click on any image in this post to view a larger version)

The boldface shows where I made a few tweaks to the numbers. The schedule is now more progressive across every income bracket. Yes, this will be painful for every person, but if you think you have it bad look at what the person in the bracket immediately above you is paying. That person has it even worse, and that continues right up to the top, where the 8,274 Americans who reported over five million dollars in income last year get a bill for 100 times their annual income. I hashed out a few details as to how this could be repaid and possible exceptions, which you can read in my original post. You might notice that the totals also increase somewhat. In the nine months since I wrote the original post our leaders have added another $1.3 trillion to our federal debt. Ho hum.

This time I took it a step further. I found some debt projections over the next few years to see how much additional debt we can expect to assume by year:

The next step was to use my same rules to project how we could pay for our additional debt in each coming year. Here is how 2013 looks:

Again, no American is exempt regardless of income, and both the rates and actual dollars are progressive all the way up the line. And if you haven't already noticed, yes, we are confiscating twice the annual income of our top earners. I did the same exercise for each year through FY17, and pulled together an aggregate of what each American's total bill will be. To avoid repetition I'm not displaying them here. Instead I've summed them all up in the separate table:

Now take a look at what you owe. The column on the far right shows your combined bill for paying off our total deficit plus the projected deficits for the next four years. I can't imagine a single person being happy with their bill, and if you don't like what you're getting stuck with, again - look at the person in the next bracket up and it gets even uglier. And as bad as this looks, it gets worse.

If you're married these rates don't apply to household income; they're based on the incomes of both you and your spouse. I'm looking at where Sister Babe and I fall under this payment schedule, and it's not pretty. If we were handed a bill like this over the next few years our spending habits would change dramatically. This would all but end going out to eat, going to the movies or any other shows, and cutting every discretionary expense (not to mention savings) in our household to the bone. As this same effect multiplies across every household in the United States guess what happens to all of the lower wage earners in those service industries and every other business that they support. Now with the contracting economy think about what happens to the tax base at local, state, and federal levels. And it gets worse.

Why do we have this debt to begin with? Simply put, it is because the government is spending far more than it is collecting. That means that all of this money you're being asked to spend only pays for the deficit spending. In case you missed it this is not some alternative tax or fair tax or flat tax - this is an additional tax, not a replacement for the existing code. So in addition to federal, state, local, property, sales, and any other taxes you're already paying this monstrous bill is what you owe on top of what you pay now.

How about if we just go after those evil one percenters, or call for a "Buffet Rule" or whatever the left's class warfare meme of the month will be? The Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans have a combined net worth of $1.5 Trillion. Let's start off by confiscating every cent that they own. Doing some rough math that gets you a ten percent discount on your bill for the current debt, and will naturally increase your bill on subsequent years since we've killed the geese to get their golden eggs. And if we set a precedent for the government to decide to arbitrarily confiscate the wealth of private citizens at a certain income level guess what the people who fall below that line start doing? And guess what the effect on private investment will be at all income levels? "Eat the Rich" might be a great Motorhead song, but as a tax policy it doesn't measure up.

[MattinNJ]

We are so screwed

[mdittmar]

We are so screwed

[SunkenCiv]

Fire all Demwits, and let the Pubbies know that if Obamacare isn’t repealed, they’ll be hauled out of their gold-plated offices in DC and have their heads chopped off on TV. That should pretty much balance the budget without a tax hike. Thanks Starman417.

[gorush]

We have grown the moocher class to a multitude that will riot if any necessary reform is enacted.

[FatherofFive]

We are so screwed.

All by design.

It was the Communist plan in 1934. It is 0bama’s Communist plan today.

If I wanted America to fail