National Debt Growing Too Large to Ignore

Yesterday we played "whose to blame" on our current deficit problems.  Not to get all partisan, but the correct answer is Bush and Congressional Republicans.  Congratulations, collect your free cookie at participating Subway's (note, none are actually participating to my knowledge.)

Today I just wanted to point out how dire the situation is.

To keep the debt from wrecking the economy, the U.S. would need to raise annual federal income taxes an average of $11,000 in 2019 for all families that pay them, an increase of about 55%. "The revenues needed are far too big to raise from high earners," says Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley. "The government will have to go where the money is, to the middle class." The most likely levy: a European-style value-added tax (VAT) that would substantially raise the price of everything from autos to restaurant meals.

This is where political courage comes in and right now neither party has it.  Our current budgetting practices are out of control and it's all based in fundamental lies to you.  Democrats want you to believe that new social spending won't cost anything so they promise to raise taxes only on the rich.  Republicans want you to believe that they can increase military spending and cut taxes at the same time.

Both are lying to you and Americans are collectively too stupid to figure it out.  I guess that's why they both do such a bang up job of underfunding education.

Ironically, for all our chest thumping over bankrupting the Soviet Union through unsustainable military spending and expensive Asian military adventures, it appears that's the same cliff we are racing towards.

Fareed Zakaria has some notes on the absurdities of our "defense" budget:

In recent decades, defense budgeting has existed in a dreamland, where ever more elaborate weapons are built without regard to enemies, costs or trade-offs. In 2008, the General Accountability Office said cost overruns for the Pentagon's 95 biggest weapons programs added up to $300 billion. Remember, that's just the overruns! The system has become so pervasive and entrenched that most people no longer bother to get outraged.

Some other things you should know about the impact of military spending:

• Military spending accounts for half of all US discretionary spending.
• The US spends about as much as the rest of the world combined on its military.
• We spend 8 times more than our closest rival, China.

Of course saying these things out loud are politically impractical due to the transparently jingoist cat-calls that always follow.  "Greatest nation, support the troops, blah blah blah."  If we're so great, why is it that being geographically segregated from our enemies and possessing the ultimate deterrent, we are still so scared?

Oh and by the way, almost none of the really obscene spending has a thing to do with "the troops."  In fact, while we spend hundreds of billions on advanced aircraft that cannot be shot down unless we're invaded by aliens, we buy inferior body armor for the infantry; the guys actually fighting the terrorists.

Yes, I know people are afraid of terrorists, but Europe has lived with terror for far longer, provides better education, health care, and infrastructure yet still finds a way to have a functioning military.  All we're talking about is a more sustainable model.

If we were to simply bring our military spending in line with France as a percentage of GDP, we would still have by far the most powerful military in the world, forestall budget collapse AND pay for universal health insurance.  Neat trick eh?  Too bad anyone that proposes it will be denounced as a communist.

Oh well, I guess the Soviets didn't see their collapse coming until the bricks were falling off the Berlin Wall.  Such is the end of superpowers.