Anyone tired of doom & gloom yet?
EFL
In a report on U.S. budget outlook, IMF researchers described the state of government finances as "perilous" in the long run and urged Congress and the White House to take steps to quickly rein in the deficits. Although federal tax cuts and spending increases since 2001 bolstered the global economy in the short run, the report said "large U.S. fiscal deficits also pose significant risks for the rest of the world."
The sky is falling, The sky is falling!!
| Bush inherited an economy that was in recession and a stock market that crashed, which was followed by the 9-11 attacks and the War on Terror, including the invasion and occupation of two countries. Somehow, I'd expect that to show up in the economic picture... |
The White House has said it expects the budget deficit to expand to a record $ 475 billion in fiscal 2004, exceeding 4% of the gross domestic product. U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow on Wednesday described that level as "entirely manageable," and said the Bush administration expects the deficit to shrink to 2% of GDP within five years.
Shouldn’t we petition Brussels for an exemption to that rule?
But the IMF researchers said that won’t be enough to address the government’s long-term fiscal problems - including financing the Social Security and Medicare programs over the next 75 years. In their report, they said the government faces a $47 trillion shortfall in its ability to pay for those and all other long-term obligations. Closing that gap would require European style socialism "an immediate and permanent" federal tax increase of 60% or a 50% cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits.
| ... preferably the former, which would be guaranteed to sink the economy." |
Congress and the White House can avert those dangers by acting immediately to balance the budgets, the researchers estimated. Allowing the recent tax cuts to expire by 2013 would reduce the budget shortfall by nearly half. The researchers also said Congress should consider a tax on energy consumption, arguing that it would "help meet the administration’s environmental objectives while also providing substantial support for fiscal consolidation." Such tax increases, they calculated, would have a minimal effect on U.S. economic growth.
Well then the opposite also must be true, no tax increases would have a minimum deletereous effect on US economic growth. The intenationalist movement won’t be happy until we are as miserable as everyone else
| Especially in the energy department. The "tax on energy consumption" equates to a gasoline or petroleum products tax, which increases transportation costs on everything. It's like imposing an additional inflation layer on the economy — see 1973 oil embargo, effects thereof. The usual suspects keep coming back to this one again and again. And every time the succeed in imposing a tax on gas, diesel fuel, and/or home heating oil, they wait 12 months and raise the same cry all over again. The U.S. depends on its transportation industry. And Americans don't live in small towns, where they can walk to work, or in cities, where they can take the bus. They live in 'burbs, where a car is needed just to get to the grocery store, not to mention work, the baby sitter, or the bowling alley. |
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