Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, March 15 2011 @ 06:53 PM CST
In order to get the deficit down to 3 percent of GDP, not to balance the budget, you would have to confiscate around 80 percent of all income over $209,000–recall that the large majority of these taxpayers pay state income taxes too–which would destroy the economy . . .
Via Powerline[*1] .
An influential Silicon Valley venture capital company prepared a report entitled “USA, Inc.” which analyzed the financial state of the United States, as if the USA were a company in which they were considering investment.
Download the entire 420-slide Powerpoint presentation entitled “USA, Inc.” here. [*2]
It is not pretty. But we have to face the cold reality of the numbers.
We have promised with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid more than we can deliver. That is the bottom line. We will wind up breaking those promises. It is only a matter of when, and how. And on top of those empty promises, we lay out a new, equally undeliverable promise of universal free health care. A promise you can not deliver on has a name. That name is “a lie.”
In less than fifteen years, these “entitlement” programs will consume all of the Federal Government’s revenue. All of it. No more national defense, no more national parks, no more federal research grants, no more federal highway funds, no more air traffic control system, no more education grants, no more federally guaranteed loans or bank accounts, no more NPR, no more PBS. It will all be going to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
We need to stop lying to ourselves. We need to fix this problem.
If we do it sooner, the pain will be less for everyone. If we wait, or try to pretend that we can somehow muddle through, the pain will be much greater, and the pain will be greatest for those who are least able to bear that pain.
Compassion demands that we fix this.
Now.