[tseabrooks]

I don't think you get the point. We haven't even experimented or tried to do more with less. The U.S. philosophy has been so based around throwing money at a problem that we never consider whether we are spending to much until now.

When we have some states and local governments getting tot he point where they must shut down nearly all services the problem isn't money. The problem is they didn't reduce expenditures sooner. The problem is they run fiscally irresponsibly budgets with massive debts.

Bailing out banks and companies - A terrible idea. Cutting taxes - I'm pretty much in favor of this for everyone - especially since those top 5% of earners end up paying 70+ % of the total income tax. But that's not the point here. The point is that we HAVE to figure out how to spend less. Spending the same amount of money when you make half isn't an acceptable strategy.

[jbm]

Your figures are quite off.

The mood of this thread suggests I will be modded down but: 1) How much is the real tax on the top 5%? 2) How much of the national income do the top 5% of earners make? 3) How much of the income do they make because of the unique situation they find themselves in the USA?

A wiki-search revealed the following: In 2007, the top 5% of income earners paid over half of the federal income tax revenue.[36] However, as of 2004, the top 5% hold 59.2% of wealth. The top 1% of income earners paid 25% of the total income tax revenue.[37] Again however, the top 1% hold 23.5% of wealth. Forty seven percent of Americans pay no federal income tax.

(The 47% thing includes children / housewives / househusbands / etc.., hence it holds no interest to me as a figure. That said, you're welcome to try to change my mind).

The rich are paying a fair share, especially considering how difficult it is to accomplish the same task outside the US.

[nanairo]

Obviously it's not a good idea. But I would imagine that the answer if you can't fill your pot holes is to raise taxes, not hope that the future will bring something better.

If during a boom you've cut taxes, why now that money is needed shouldn't you raise them again? Didn't Clinton leave office with a surplus? So if at that time you had a balanced budget, and now you can't even pay to fill your pot holes, and one of the reason is because of your massive cuts in taxes... wouldn't that suggest that to fix you books you need to raise them again?

[yummyfajitas]

Didn't Clinton leave office with a surplus?

No.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&...

[nanairo]

Oh, you should fix wikipedia then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton

which is based on this: http://www.cbo.gov/budget/data/historical.pdf

as confirmed by factcheck.org: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/during_the_clinton_adm...

Actually this was (from the site you linked) show positive saving too (though I am not sure if it's relevant): http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&...

Could it be because you sent data for gross change in debt? Or maybe because those numbers include the extra interest rate paid by the debt (i.e. the government started saving, but the debt was so huge that the extra interests from the previous year compensated for it?).

Dunno, I am just trying to put the two pictures together.

[yummyfajitas]

That's debt held by the public, i.e. bonds. A lot of the debt is owed to old people through the SS system rather than to bondholders through the treasury.

Obviously one can debate the exact definitions of what should constitute debt, but I'm using the following definition: promises to pay out money in the future which will be politically very difficult to renege on.

If you want to look at debt held by the public, Bush had surpluses too (though not as large).

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&...