[yequalsx]

The point I made in showing that yummyfajita's remarks to be wrong stand. I might be wrong on my belief that repealing the Bush tax cuts would greatly improve the fiscal outlook of the federal government but this does not in any way detract from my point.

Your last two paragraphs are not germane to my point and they are wrong in any case. However, let's assume your last statement is correct.

Right now taxes around 15.4% GDP [1]. You seem to believe that 19% GDP in taxes is a reasonable amount to pay for government services. The GDP of the U.S. is around $15 trillion [2]. A 3.5% GDP increase in taxes to get us to 19% GDP for taxes would mean an increase of taxes by $525 billion. Current budgetary projections have the U.S. deficit at slightly over $500 billion in 4 years [3]. A lot of the current deficit is in non-recurring expenditures that are related to the fiscal crisis that started in 2008.

I might be wrong on my belief about the Bush II tax cuts being a large portion of our long term fiscal problems but from your sentence one must conclude that you agree that raising taxes by a reasonable amount would eliminate our long term fiscal problems.

[1] http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc...

[2] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD

[3] http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.ht...

[protomyth]

I didn't say it was reasonable, I just said it was historical. My basic thesis is that government spending needs to be decreased by a lot. Taxes need to be simplified and dropped.

I have no idea how any of the links prove my point on not having an actual budget in 1000+ days isn't increasing the problem. Heck the debt ceiling raise had parts that immediately added quite a lot of debt. Given that [3] says the deficit amounts will be going down is off base. I assume it ignores the CBO estimates[1].

[1] http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/116x...