In response to the debt ceiling stunts happening in the US I've been stumbling across various related bits of information. It turns out that the Congressional Budget Office projects total revenues of $2.228 trillion, total outlays of $3.708 trillion, and a deficit of $1.48 trillion for 2011. We are so far away from having a balanced budget that it's not even funny.
I just looked up Clinton's budgets. He had a 0.2 trillion surplus, and was paying down the national debt. I remember people actually worrying about what would happen when the US had no debt – and there wasn't the option for a 'completely safe investment'. Bush II then passed out tax cuts to the rich and started 2 off-budget wars and now we have a 1.5 trillion deficit. Amazing – it's obvious we have to tax the rich more.
Currently business – the so called 'job creators' the Republicans want to give tax relief to, are sitting on piles of cash. If they want more money the interest rates are almost zero – they just have to grab some. But they actually don't need more cash, because they don't need to create jobs – because there is no demand for their products and services.
What's needed is to get the cash out of the hands of corporations, and the rich, and into the hands of the government so that it can create jobs re-building America. We need to tax the rich – why should anyone earn more than 100x the minimum wage? We need to give tax relief to the poor and middle class who will actually spend it buying necessary goods.
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