You can read Myth’s 1, 2 and 4 here should you care to; my purpose for the moment is to mug and pummel the idea that spending is not the problem and this helps illustrate that.
The revenue problem refers to the notion that revenues are too low. Typically, special attention is drawn to the tax rates paid by the “wealthy.” However, taxes are not too low. In actuality, taxes are too high. Once again, take a look at the last 20 years. In 1992, federal tax revenue totaled $1.642 trillion in 2012 dollars. In 2012, revenue skyrocketed to $2.435 trillion in 2012 dollars. While federal spending has eclipsed revenue by more than $1 trillion each of the last four years, too little revenue has not been the culprit!
Put another way, imagine that you are earning 793 billion more dollars today than you were twenty years ago and yet your lifestyle still exceeds your income by more than a trillion dollars a year.
Do you think the someone with the Name tag that reads ‘Hello My Name is: Federal Government” could use a little intervention?
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Last Friday President Obama gave a speech in Virginia where he said, among other things, “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own….If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”