★ Balancing the Budget

In These Times:

Invoking his experience as a plastics salesman, Boehner asks why government doesn’t act like other businesses that “live within their means.” But virtually every business—big or small—borrows money to operate and grow. More obviously, government is not a business. Its “means” depend on its tax revenue, which can be increased to do important things like building roads, educating young people, protecting the environment and helping the needy. The United States takes in relatively little revenue: Its tax share, from 2004-2008, ranked 29th out of 33 OECD developed countries and the lowest at the federal level since 1950.

Center for American Progress economists Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden noted that if the United States increased its share to that of 22nd-place Canada, the deficits would be eliminated. Taxes on investments, on corporations and on large estates are lower than any time in more than 65 years, while tax loopholes mainly benefiting the rich have nearly doubled to more than $1 trillion—even though the top 2 percent have captured almost all new income since 2000. That’s where government could find the “means” within which to live: As Ettlinger later testified before a Senate committee, if the income of the rich continues to grow as it has, wealthy Americans could pay the cost of letting the Bush tax cuts expire in January and still be taking home more by the following October.

I am not liberal or conservative but it’s very hard to ignore that the US needs to bring in more money. I want more accountability and more cuts to stupid and idiotic spending. I’m not talking about planned parenthood or NASA. I’m talking about the lifestyles we afford for our leaders to live like kings or the months of work to pass one bill through the house. We need to do things more efficiently.

…and I’m still bent out of shape about 700 billion dollars going to the bailout of our financial systems and no one tracking that money or demanding it get paid back. That is a lot of money and it’s gone forever. We need to bring in more money and spend less. It’s two-fold.

Speaking of bringing in more money, Warren Buffett in an Op-Ed for the Times.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

I LOVE paying taxes. I’m not a homeowner, am not saving for my kids’ college or anything else. I do save money for retirement and for trips and I am in a higher tax bracket than I used to be. I spend thousands and thousands in taxes each year. I don’t mind that it funds our military or helps the retired live out their lives or fix my roads. That’s fine. However, it’s sickening that people making 1,000 times what I make a year don’t pay an equal share.