Posted on 04/15/2007 9:23:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Maybe the era of big government isn't over, after all.
As Americans finish their annual tax-filing flurry to meet a Tuesday deadline, it is true that tax rates are lower than they were a few years ago. But according to a different yardstick, the federal government's reach is expanding.
Slightly over half of all Americans – 52.6 percent – now receive significant income from government programs, according to an analysis by Gary Shilling, an economist in Springfield, N.J. That's up from 49.4 percent in 2000 and far above the 28.3 percent of Americans in 1950. If the trend continues, the percentage could rise within ten years to pass 55 percent, where it stood in 1980 on the eve of President's Reagan's move to scale back the size of government.
That two-decade shrink-the-government trend now appears over, if for no other reason than demographics. The aging baby-boomer generation is poised to receive big payments from Social Security and government healthcare programs.
"New Deal programs persist," despite the Reagan revolution and its aftermath, says James Galbraith, an economist at the University of Texas in Austin. "They persist because they are largely successful and highly popular."
Mr. Shilling's analysis found that about 1 in 5 Americans hold a government job or a job reliant on federal spending. A similar number receive Social Security or a government pension. About 19 million others get food stamps, 2 million get subsidized housing, and 5 million get education grants. For all these categories, Mr. Shilling counted dependents as well as the direct recipients of government income.
Many Americans, in surveys, say they don't like the way their tax money is spent. And a majority now says, in a reversal from a year ago, that their federal income taxes are too high, according to an April Gallup poll.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
How many of those are NON CITIZENS (ILLEGALS!)?!
When you've realized the task is futile, read Claire Wolfe’s, 101 Things to Do ‘Til the Revolution.
Ah,let’s see now.I’m disabled,no I’m a welfare recipient,oh hell I’m a disabled,welfare recipient so just send me my damn checks huh ???
First, give it back to the Indians. Then take it away from them again.
News flash. It is bound to be up because the “Boomers” started retiring a few years ago. All the BS the media prints about the boomers will start retiring in a few more years is just that, BS.
The boomers were born from 1944-1958 and they have been retiring for the past 2-5 years. From 55 yrs on you loose alot of them to disability and many have passed 62yrs.
It will get much worse in the next 2-5 yrs.
Yep. But don't worry we'll keep pressing the Demopublican levers just like we always have.
Democrats are already talking about a 15% tax on all IRA's and 401K's ..... what's the point again?
Well, there was that South Park episode. It was weird. When we were going through a family crisis with my dad when it became it apparent that he was "a danger to himself and others" with his driving, I happened to see the "Red Dawn" based South Park episode about "seniors" taking over while I was staying in a motel during a crisis-related sojourn.
This cast "seniors" in the role of the Russians in a take-over of South Park precipitated by an attempt to revoke driving privileges. I was quite amazed to see something that came so close to my immediate concerns, and I appreciated the empathy.
Of course, it is my generation that is now on deck for the end game, and I make my plans accordingly ... don't tell anyone.
I’m in that younger group...
Same here (b. 1960)
I suspect the figure is actually a lot higher, when you count public schools and federally subsidized college student loans. People who use those things don’t like to think of them as handouts, but they’re handouts just like all the others. Most people with children in public schools aren’t paying anywhere near their district’s per-child expenditures in taxes. And for the few people who are, they’re still be sucked into the big scam of recirculating private citizens’ money with government strings attached.
If somebody who has two children in public schools is actually paying $40,000 a year in property and other taxes that end up in their school district, and the district $20,000/year per student, they may feel like it’s all perfectly fair and they’re getting their money’s worth for their taxes. But actually they are being forced to subsidize the government’s program of taking people’s money and giving it back to them, subject to all sorts of conditions that the people wouldn’t have wanted if they’d been free to spend their own money as they pleased.
...sorry for the hasty wording there. Our older Baby Boomer peers received more in wages, having benefitted from earlier domestic production then having helped to shut much of it down behind them. The age for getting Social Security checks is later for younger ones. IMO, we should all work as long as we can, though, and never give up on getting jobs or starting businesses.
true, most people aren't aware of the coming problem. I read some time back that the unfunded Federal, State and Local pension obligations are over $20 Trillion. I don't know what it will take to return the government our Founders intended.
ping
What if a percentage of what people pay into the SS system is mandated to go directly to that taxpayer’s natural parents? It would incentivize having children, raising them to be productive earners and make paying into the system more palatable. In addition more children would reduce the need for illegal alien labor. Anything at this point is better than watching everything collapse into some unrecognizable soup.
Civil War seems to be about the only remedy that is left. Not advocating one just making the observation.
If you can get your 401K out of the country ... .do it now.
Doing our best with moderate exercise every day to get/stay in shape and doing ongoing technical studies seems to help. As for wanting to hire us often, employers won’t have any good alternative choice for long.
bump for later reading
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