Posted on 08/13/2007 11:06:54 AM PDT by traviskicks
The Treasury Department reported Friday that federal revenues reached $2.12 trillion ($2,120,000,000,0000) for the first ten months of fiscal year 2007. In both current and inflation-adjusted dollars, that puts the federal government on course for the most revenue its ever collected in a year. Indeed, its the most revenue any government in the history of the world has ever collected. And yet its not enough to satisfy the voracious appetites of the spenders in Congress and the administration. Spending was $2.27 trillion for the same ten months.
It seems that the deficit problem in Washington is not a result of insufficient tax revenue but rather the inexorable growth of spending on everything from earmarks to entitlements to war.
To be sure, the U.S. economy is the largest national economy in history, and thats the main reason for record tax levels. And tax revenues are not at their peak in terms of percentage of GDPthough theyre getting close. Earlier in the year OMB estimated that revenues as a percentage of GDP would reach 18.5 percent in 2007. But as of a month ago that figure had reached 18.8 percent, approaching the levels that typically produce popular demand for relief. But as spending interests become stronger and more widespread in Washington, popular demand for lower taxes faces more resistance. It seems safe to conclude that George W. Bush will go down in history as the biggest taxer and the biggest spender ever.
That would only be true if (1) no President in the future ever increased the federal budget and if (2) the US economy never grows larger than its current size.
Boaz is a moron.
GWB ran as a “compassionate conservative”, not a limited gov’t conservative. The last Presidential candidate ran on a small gov’t platform was Reagan.
Well yeah, given the fact that we now have upwards of 25 or 30 million illegals in country, not to mention their anchor babies and school age children....
Nice spin...
I hope they can also put 2 and 2 together and figure out that his TAX CUTS stumulated the economy, and then created more revenue
Nothing like a misleading headline. Bush gave us tax cuts. Revenues are up because the economy is doing well.
Should we cut spending? Absolutely. But the Cato Institute doesn't do much for its credibility by allowing this blogger to post these kinds of nonsensical headlines.
“GWB ran as a compassionate conservative”
I watched one of the debates from 2000 recently and he sounded like a quasi Reagan like conservative. He didn’t sound like a liberaltarian but he did sound conservative. I was surprised by how much of a complete turn around he did after getting elected. Really, I noticed the shift when Jim Jeffords jumped parties.
Aren’t taxes and spending controlled by Congress?
He isn’t a blogger. He’s the executive VP of Cato and the favored guy to take over as President and CEO when founder Ed Crane retires.
True by any measure except percentage, but soon to be outstripped by the next Admin.
Hmm, since the president cannot impose a tax and cannot spend without congress' earmarking the money, I'm not sure how you'd say it was all his fault.
Bush43 will never be confused with a limited government conservative. Its fiscally responsible to cut taxes, but if you don’t cut spending at the same time, government will continue to grow. Those increased revenues have only fed the bloated federal bureaucratic spending beast. The Feds are on the verge of spedning 70% of the annual budget on social welfare state programs. Dubya`s trillion dollar liberal prescription drug entitlement program has been a driving force towards a more expansive federal bureaucracy.
97% of Federal spending on entitlements is fixed in law. Congress would have to mandate the cuts in legislation. So where EXACTLY would YOU cut 5 to 10% of the Federal Budget that is not mandated by law? Please be specific with your choices and amounts?
LLS
Vote the Senate & Congress out of office until they get things right. What the each state’s politicians do affects all of the US. We better watch out for each other because the politicians sure aren’t.
Everytime you hear the word “Compassion” spoken by a politico hide your wallet.
Who are *you* kidding? Looking at tax revenues adjusted for inflation, they are at the highest they’ve ever been, at least since Kennedy was president.... As a % of GDP, they’re still lower, but rapidly increasing...
You see, brackets are adjusted for inflation, not GDP. So if you sit still on taxes for any prolonged length of time, you actually will push people into higher tax brackets through real bracket creep.
That’s exactly where CBO attributes a very strong majority of the stimulus in revenues in recent years to have come from - not from increased economic activity, but from the default tax increases people are seeing as their wages outpace inflation.
Its a stealth tax increase, but it can be viewed as a tax increase....
Isn’t that the truth.
I saw an oh-so-clever bumper sticker on a liberalmobile this weekend:
George Bush: No child left a dime
I wanted to smack the idiot driver. With all of this “defund the war” talk, you’d think they’d figure out who has the power to pass out dimes. (Hint: It ain’t the president.)
And unfortunately, the party of “fiscal conservatives” have proven themselves not to be fiscally conservative in the least..... For the most part, lately you have a choice between “tax and spend” or “borrow and spend even more”
Politicians in general, and especially leftist (socialist/communist) politicians,
will fight any simplified tax system tooth and nail because they will not give up the ability to punish or reward via the tax code.
“Dubya`s trillion dollar liberal prescription drug entitlement program has been a driving force towards a more expansive federal bureaucracy.”
And without that, you would be close to looking at an off-budget balance this year. The government would still be racking up more debt, but the amount of the debt held by the public could be decreasing, just as it did in the late 90s....
Getting the gov’t out of direct competition for investment dollars by limiting the amount of debt available to the public would be a good thing....
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