Friday 22 April 2011

Is the US Going the Way of Venezuela?

 

Do you see that target forming? Oh wait, you probably can’t… it’s on your back.

Consumer Poll on How to Reduce the National Debt

An overwhelming majority of the general US populace polled by insists the government “keep its hands off Medicare.”

A smaller majority want to keep military spending intact. The only thing that gets majority support is raising taxes on incomes over $250,000 a year.

Awesome.

We’re all for it. But only if we enact legislation that completely dissuades people from innovating and starting new businesses while we’re at it. Let’s nationalize a few more industries too. We’ve already locked up mortgages and the auto industry… let’s shoot for oil and gas next.

Barrack Obama over Hugo Chaves
Barackuo Obamez

If the US is going to go the way of Venezuela, we might as well get it over and done with.

One question: Can we shut down the borders to immigrants and trade any faster? We’re really getting impatient.

Assuming incomes over $250,000 were taxed at the rate they were a decade ago in 1999 – before those onerous Bush era tax cuts – the government could bring in another $70 billion in revenue per year, say number crunchers from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Such a measure would accomplish the following:

Overall revenue would grow a whopping 2.7% over the current $2.6 trillion

The deficit would be cut from a staggering $1.65 trillion to a far more manageable… $1.58 trillion

The tax increase would cover a huge chunk of the interest owed on the national debt – 17 cents out of every dollar!

Woohoo! Let’s get real about deficit reduction! Yeah! Like the mortgage-burning parties of old… let’s burn Treasuries… cuz we no longer need ’em! YEAH!!!!

(Oy. Remind us not to stay out too late on Tuesday evenings any more.)

Addison Wiggin
for The Daily Reckoning

Is the US Going the Way of Venezuela? originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning recently featured articles on stagflation, best libertarian books, and QE2 .

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