As US tax rates drop, government's reach grows

CS Monitor ^ | 4/16/2007 | Mark Trumbull

[oblomov]

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.

[oblomov]

So much for the land of the free. Limited government went out with the Charleston and the Model A.

[TheBattman]

Slightly over half of all Americans – 52.6 percent – now receive significant income from government programs

Is this including Federal employees? Or is this a reference to social spending? Either way, the number is WAY too high.

[Eagle of Liberty]

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.

YIPPEE!!

/sarc

[oblomov]

>>>Is this including Federal employees? Or is this a reference to social spending?

Both.

[Always Right]

So much for the land of the free.

From the perspective of the recipient, it is 'free'.

[KarlInOhio]

That two-decade shrink-the-government trend now appears over,

The "trend" only existed in Republican fund raising speeches. I don't think there was any year in which the amount spent by the government was less then the year before.

[Renegade]

I put enough hard earned $$ into the SS program at no will of my own, and want it ALL back .

[rhombus]

"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."

This was the dumbest quote in the story (so dumb they had to repeat it twice). What we have found is that social security is NOT successful and an incredibly poor way to provide for retirement. It is only popular because we haven't been allowed by Government to change the program into something that works better. People are fearful of losing what little Social Security does provide them for their money.

[WBL 1952]

Per the article “significant income” means that as the population is aging, more and more of them are living on their ss income.

This was expected.

No news here.

[ClaireSolt]

No way, Jose. The money contributed in your name is long spent.

[traditional1]

[nomadicone]

You will get it all back. The more appropriate question is: What will it be worth? With the way things are going on the inflation front, you will be lucky if your SS income in 20 years will be enough for a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

[zarf]

Thank god the Repulicans have been running the show! < /s>

[dfwgator]

Yeah the drop the tax rates, but then more of us get hit with the AMT.

It’s all just a shell game.

[EagleUSA]

I put enough hard earned $$ into the SS program at no will of my own, and want it ALL back .

---

We had better get it back.

[dfwgator]

What we have found is that social security is NOT successful and an incredibly poor way to provide for retirement.

And the problem is we've already paid into it with our own money, and so we are so fearful of losing what we've paid in that we'd do anything to save it, even though it would be in the best interests to get rid of it.

[Eagle of Liberty]

I put enough hard earned $$ into the SS program at no will of my own, and want it ALL back .

Good luck! Too bad you don't have a contract signed by the United States Government agreeing to this.

[dfwgator]

Too bad you don't have a contract signed by the United States Government agreeing to this.

Besides, ask any Indian about how reliable a contract signed with the United States Government is.

[Feiny]

[xrp]

Alexander Fraser Tytler made this interesting observation about democracy in 1776: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. [Tytler describes the life cycle of civilization as from Bondage to Spiritual Faith to Great Courage to Liberty to Abundance to Selfishness to Complacency to Apathy to Dependency and back into Bondage.]”