ScreamingEagle
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- Jul 5, 2004
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If you favor higher taxes, support more government spending and would like to see our national debt increase, then you're going to love the new Obama budget!
With the usual Beltway fanfare, President Obama released his FY 2011 budget this morning. What does it say about where the country is going under the Obama-Pelosi-Reid leadership? Whats going to happen with taxes? Has the president learned any lessons from his partys electoral defeats in November and January?
Lets start with the basics. Historically (meaning, since 1960 or so), federal taxes have averaged about 18 percent of our economy. Spending has averaged about 21 percent. The result has been an average deficit of 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). That basic framework has been the story of U.S. budgets from JFK, to Nixon, to Reagan, to Clinton, to Obama.
Sometimes, these numbers jumped around (higher spending under Carter, higher taxes under Clinton, etc.), but this has been the gravitational pull that we seem to keep coming back to.
Under the Obama budget, taxes are scheduled to rise from 14.8 percent of GDP in 2009 to 19.6 percent of GDP in 2020 (higher than the historical average of 18 percent). Spending is scheduled to fall slightly from 24.7 percent of GDP in 2009 to 23.7 percent in 2020 (much, much higher than the historical average of 21 percent of GDP). The national debt will hit over 77 percent of our economy in 2020, which would be the highest level since 1950, when we were paying off World War II.
What does all that tell us? It says that the budget deficit is not caused by a deficiency of tax revenue. Taxes are expected to be highersubstantially higherthan their historical average. Rather, the budget deficit is a spending problem. Spending is far higher than its average of 21 percent of GDP throughout the budget window. If you are concerned about the deficit, you only need to look to one side of the budget ledger. Spending is out of control. That has led to spiraling deficits and debt without end.
President Obama hasnt gotten that message, or at least, if he has, it doesnt show up in the budget.
FOXNews.com - Obama's Budget -- What Was He Thinking?