[subjectHarold]

If you make the tax system substantially less progressive, as in Sweden or other often mentioned examples, I think it is quite possible to reach a sustainable level.

I partly agree though in that US spending really makes no sense. Other countries that raise more revenue are generally quite targeted in their spending, the US govt is not...at all. It makes no sense to say that the solution to bad spending is to generate more revenue...but it is also not particularly clear that there is any desire to think about how to spend more effectively, outside of slashing everything.

Btw, just generally this reflects how far the US is behind when it comes to intellectual discussions on policy. Most (but not all) discussions about these topics in the US take intellectual force from anti-scientific dogma. Elsewhere, politics has become an evidence-based study of the merit of policies. The former approach just isn't sustainable, the level of poverty in the US is quite shocking (to this outsider's perspective).