Just to return some reality to the discussion--and reassert facts made a number of times by a variety of people...though I argue that there is no debt or deficit "crisis", if you want to figure out where the money is, it's all about war, corporate welfare and the Bush tax cuts. This needs to be repeated and repeated--not for the sake of the people in office but truly for the consumption of the people.
As former Reagan and Bush I official Bruce Bartlett observes:
Revenue has averaged 18 percent of G.D.P. since 1970 and a little more than that in the postwar era. At a similar stage in previous business cycles, two years past the trough, revenue was considerably higher: 18 percent of G.D.P. in 1977 after the 1973-75 recession; 17.3 percent of G.D.P. in 1984 after the 1981-82 recession, and 17.5 percent of G.D.P. in 1993 after the 1990-91 recession. Revenue was markedly lower, however, at this point after the 2001 recession and was just 16.2 percent of G.D.P. in 2003.
The reason, of course, is that taxes were cut in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006.
Did it work? Nah.
It would have been one thing if the Bush tax cuts had at least bought the country a higher rate of economic growth, even temporarily. They did not. Real G.D.P. growth peaked at just 3.6 percent in 2004 before fading rapidly. Even before the crisis hit, real G.D.P. was growing less than 2 percent a year.
The cost: $2.5 trillion, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. And, as CJT says:
If Congress makes permanent the Bush tax cuts or extends them for another decade, the cost will be $5.4 trillion.
Corporate Welfare? The Job Party estimates savings from enacting cuts in corporate welfare: over $2 trillion--
End Deferral of Taxes on Income of U.S.-Controlled Corporations Abroad
2011-2015 savings: $199 billion (Citizen for Tax Justice estimate). Encourages off-shoring of work and capital.
End Accelerated Depreciation on Equipment
2011-2015 savings: $141 billion (CTJ estimate). Accelerated depreciation can result in a very low, or even negative, tax rate on profits from a particular investment.
End Deduction for Domestic Manufacturing
2011-2015 savings: $76.7 billion (CTJ estimate). Provides virtually no benefit to the economy and is blatant corporate welfare.
End Last-In, First-Out Accounting (LIFO)
2011-2015 savings: $24.2 billion (CTJ estimate). Corporations use LIFO to hide their true profits.
Cut Subsidies to Big Agribusiness: $52 billion (Taxpayers for Common Sense). Small farms are disappearing while big agri-business racks up huge profits—with corporate welfare support.
Permit Government to Negotiate Drug Prices for Medicare. Savings 2012-2021: $157.9 billion. (Congressional Progressive Caucus). Barring government involvement is an indirect corporate subsidy.
End Tax Breaks For Drug Companies. 2011-2020 savings: $50 billion (estimated based on figures from Rep. Jerold Nadler). Stops a $5 billion-a year annual tax break for direct-to-consumer advertising. We should pay for drug companies to market to us?
Enact A Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee. 2012-2021 Savings: $70.9 billion (Congressional Progressive Caucus). Imposed on largest banks as a repayment of corporate welfare extended via bank bailouts for financial crisis precipitated by banks.
Enact a Derivatives and Speculation Tax. 2012-2022 savings: $650 billion (Congressional Progressive Caucus). Wall Street receives indirect corporate welfare/subsidies via a regulatory system and infrastructure investment for which it pays virtually nothing. A very tiny transactions tax will end the corporate welfare.
Cut Military Budget 2011-2020 Savings: $550 billion (Sustainable Defense Task Force). According to the Task Force, weapons research, development, and procurement activities…“now routinely cost taxpayers over $200 billion a year. Procurement costs are up 110% in real terms since 2000. Setting aside war-related expenditures, DoD “peacetime” spending on research, development, and procurement has increased 75% in real terms.” This focuses only on the Task Force’s cuts that reasonably have a “corporate welfare” component, primarily weapons systems that don’t work and/or aren’t needed to fight an enemy that does not exist.
And we know the sad story of the cost of two immoral wars: at least $1.2 trillion and as high as $4 trillion.
This is all worth remembering...