$531,471. That's the per-household share owed by all of us for federal entitlement liabilities. And that's before a potential President Obama or President McCain increases our share exponentially with all of their facockda promises.
At least someone is paying attention. Remember Congressman Paul Ryan, author of the Roadmap for America's Future? Ryan wrote a letter to the non-partisan and objective Congressional Budget Office asking them to detail the grave fiscal situation our country will be in should Congress fail to reform Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Their reply?
Under current law, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to rise substantially as a share of the economy....In response to your letter of May 15, 2008, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has prepared the attached analysis of the potential economic effects of...using higher income tax rates alone to finance the increases in spending....
With no economic feedbacks taken into account and under an assumption that raising marginal tax rates was the only mechanism used to balance the budget, tax rates would have to more than double. The tax rate for the lowest tax bracket would have to be increased from 10 percent to 25 percent; the tax rate on incomes in the current 25 percent bracket would have to be increased to 63 percent; and the tax rate of the highest bracket would have to be raised from 35 percent to 88 percent. The top corporate income tax rate would also increase from 35 percent to 88 percent.
Such tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity and would create serious problems with tax avoidance and tax evasion.
We're not going to be able to smoke or tax ourselves out of this coming crisis, but when I listen to the non-sense concerning the demise of conservatism I'm reminded that it's forward thinking conservatives who seem to be the only ones who even recognize the problem. Perhaps they'll join me in the Cayman Islands or Liechtenstein as the road to serfdom continues to be paved with the
Mike
5 comments:
The Caymans have some great diving, so I'll probably meet you there. If nothing else causes it before then, the concrete wall of entitlement spending will probably grant us the great 'revolution' so many collectivists yearn for. Too bad those who would finance such fancy will be long gone by then. Count me among them.
You should already have something going in a foreign country or at least something going in a foreign currency bank account. Gold is good too. When the working class and the middle class start spiraling into the socialist abyss, the government will likely clamp down on foreign currency transactions and outlaw private ownership of gold, just like FDR did.
The 4&20 types, or 4:20 types, will be going to hell in a hand basket. They just don’t know it yet. The trick is for you to beat them out the door before they wise up.
If you’re still harboring hopes of a political sea change that will pull the Empire back from the brink of economic destruction, forget that. At this late stage of decay, all you can get is a brief reprieve before the main down trend resumes.
The Caymans have some great diving, so I'll probably meet you there.
Indeed there is. I even have a not-so-secret diving nook in the small spit of water between Caneel Bay, St. John and Lovango Cay in the BVI's that I'd take you to....assuming I'm not breathing out a trach by then :-)
The 4&20 types, or 4:20 types, will be going to hell in a hand basket. They just don’t know it yet. The trick is for you to beat them out the door before they wise up.
That's the delicious part. I'll be fine, whatever happens, but still wish I could just write a check to pay my share in the here and now and be done with it.
One subject you don’t hear much talk about when it comes to imposing huge tax increases is taxes on retirement accounts, such as IRA’s and 401K’s.
There is no way the present working generation can withstand the income tax burden that would be needed to save the government. Working people are already up to their eyeballs in debt. Any increase in income taxes would drown them.
But there are 78 million baby boomers about to retire. About a third of them will have their retirement plans wiped out by the current housing bust, but the majority of them are sitting on pretty fat retirement accounts. The government will likely go after those accounts by laying on some kind of surcharge tax. The government will argue that it is only fair to increase the taxes on the boomers because it is they who are running up the cost of Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlements. And since they are not working anymore, the only way to get to them is to tax their retirement accounts.
The potential for seeing your retirement fund looted by the government is fairly high. It might be better to begin drawing down those accounts now, even if it incurs an up-front tax hit, than waiting until the government steals most of it by doubling or tripling the current tax on retirement income.
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