The latest Bloomberg Businessweek offers us the following sober statistics:
Right now, U.S. citizens are paying $2.4 trillion for their government. That’s what federal revenue added up to this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Some 46 percent of that total comes from individual income taxes, 35 percent from payroll taxes meant for Social Security and Medicare, 10 percent from corporate income taxes, and the last 9 percent from estate and gift taxes, excise taxes, and others.
Now consider the $1.1 trillion which, also according to the CBO, the government will borrow by year’s end to make up the difference between revenue and expenditures. That’s the budget deficit, and if there was one thing the presidential candidates agreed on during the campaign, it was this: The deficit is unignorable.
Drake Bennett’s article uses the numbers to conclude that “higher taxes are inevitable,” but here’s another interpretation: A government that cannot meet all of its obligations with $2.4 trillion in one year is far too big. It’s unfortunate that many within the political establishment would reject that premise. As William Voegeli might argue, these folks never believe that government is doing — or spending — enough.
