Tell the last teacher to turn off the classroom lights on her way out of town. Put up the for sale signs on our remaining municipal assets. America is going out of business.

A Big Lie is breaking our country. You hear it all the time: America is overtaxed.

No, it isn’t. As a percentage of GDP, federal taxes have averaged 18.4% since World War II. They’re down now, some say as low as 16%. And, shockingly, the government is out of money.

When the times get tough, the tough get scapegoating. But times have been tough for so long that they’re running out of victims to blame.

When the middle class began its long, slow plunge into oblivion back in the 70s, it was easy; blame it on the welfare queens. There actually were a few of those and they cost us some money. Not as much as Citibank or AIG—every welfare queen in America could have ten kids and send them all to Harvard and still not approach those numbers—but some.

Later it was illegal immigrants, or sleazy lawyers, or featherbedding bureaucrats, or pork, or earmarks or whatever came to hand when trying to avoid the awful truth. You’re out of money because we have it all.

But now the easy targets are all hit, the small game is wiped out—shot, stuffed and mounted on the Trickle Down Country Club Wall of Shame. Who’s left to take the heat?

The good guys, that’s who. Sorry cops, sorry firefighters, not-quite-so sorry teachers, it’s your turn now. You are the new scapegoats, your jobs, your pay, your healthcare, your pensions, and most of all, your unions.

But they can kill all the unions they want. We’ll still have to pay people for the essential services that hold our nation together. If we want to hold our nation together, because that’s what’s at stake.

When you can’t afford to police your streets, keep your parks clean, libraries open, children taught, potholes fixed, garbage collected and bridges standing, you have a mortal problem. And it isn’t “too much spending.” It’s not enough revenue.

But we’re not overtaxed; we’re fraudulently taxed. The real wealth isn’t taxed at all.

There is plenty of wealth in the nation. Wall Street is making more money than before it wrecked the economy, corporations are sitting on two trillion dollars of idle money, markets and speculators are through the roof with cash.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. If we simply kept cutting taxes a magical rain of wealth was supposed to descend upon us from on high, so we kept cutting taxes.

We’re still waiting for the wealth. And the government, which runs on taxes, is bankrupt.

What is at stake now isn’t a matter of dollars and cents, it’s not another policy debate between conservatives and liberals. It goes far deeper than that. Right down to the meaning of civilization.

This isn’t about taxes. It’s not about spending. It’s about what we want as a society.

Our choice is this. Find the money or lose our civilization. If we want safety, hire cops; if we want education, hire teachers; if we want roads, pay construction workers; if we want clean air, food, drugs and water, pay inspectors. If we want chaos, don’t.

When you don’t have enough cops and teachers and libraries and garbage collectors and maintenance workers where you live, you live in a dirty, dangerous, uneducated, crumbling place. And, selfish as they are, I don’t think even the superrich want that.

So, how do we fix it? I’m not an expert in fiscal policy, but I know what we’re doing now—or more to the point, not doing—isn’t working. But I have a suggestion.

Find the money. See where the heaving oceans of untaxed wealth are hiding in plain sight, drowning everyone in their excess, demanding more and more and more—and tax them.

But I’m not here to debate the fine points of tax policy. I’m here to speak truth to power.

This is my warning to the powerful. You are starving our society to death. You’ve put a tourniquet around our civic neck and squeezed the life out of our revenue stream. If you keep it up, everything we cherish, everything we count on as Americans will die.

Call it restructuring, call it tax reform, call it budget normalization, call it whatever the hell you want, I don’t care. But find the money.

Because if we don’t: count on it. The next scapegoat is you.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/allan-goldstein/34797/broken-unions-broken-nation-and-the-lie-that-keeps-us-broke

any income tax is too much. Income tax has always been considered the most onerous, and was never considered by even the vilest characters of the founding generation. If the budget cannot be paid for by tariffs and other constitutional measures, the budget must be cut. Eliminating every unconstitutional department would be a great start-department of education, department of agriculture, etc, etc.

OooKaay! I don't believe that things like the internet or lunar modules were ever considered by even the vilest characters of the founding generation. where did you read that the founding generation considered the income tax to be "onerous"? It certainly doesn't appear in Article I, Section 8.You do realize, don't you, that we don't have tariffs with all our free-trade agreements, don't you?

If our government got out of the welfare business and the business of subsidizing failing business (family farms, mom & pop shops excluded) and industries, no more bail outs we as a nation could lower taxes.

It's true that the framers didn't anticipate many innovations. However, many innovations occurred before 1913, and there was no need for the income tax for that. There still is no need for the income tax if all unnecessary programs were cut and sound monetary policies were put in place.

I do realize that we don't have tariffs with our "free-trade" agreements, but that's the point. (I use quotes around "free-trade" because the numerous layers of regulations choke off most free trade. NAFTA and CAFTA to name a few)

If something in the budget can't be paid for through constitutional means, it must be cut. Otherwise, the debt mounts continuously through inflation/taxation. This benefits the uber-wealthy elites with political ties (such as the Rockefellers) and screws over everyone else.

Income shouldn't be taxed. I'm in total agreement there. But I do agree our government runs on tax dollars.

3 easy steps to budget reconstruction...

1. CUT THE POINTLESS GOVERNMENT ETITIES. POINT TWO WILL PUT THE IRS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK.

2. FLAT-TAX ON CONSUMER SALES. EVERYBODY BUYS FOOD, NECESSITIES, ETC... TAX THE PEOPLE WHEN THEY BUY SOMETHING, AND DO SO EVENLY. SO WHEN MR. MONEYBAGS GOES OUT AND BUYS HIS 250,000 DOLLAR CAR HE PAYS THE SAME PERCENTAGE AS MR. WORKINGCLASS WHO BUYS A 30,000 DOLLAR MILEAGE SAVING CAR. YOU DON'T WANNA BE TAXED YOU'LL KEEP YOUR MONEY BY NOT SPENDING ALL OF IT.

3. STOP OVERPAYING POLITICIANS. I'M IN THE MILITARY AND DON'T, NOR WILL I EVER, UNDERSTAND WHY MR. PRESIDENT MAKES CLOSE TO 500,000 DOLLARS A YEAR FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. FOR WHAT, BEING THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE, WHICH MOST ALL PRESIDENTS FAIL AT ANYHOW? FROM MY PERSPECTIVE THE PEOPLE STRAPPING UP AND PUTTIN THIER LIVES ON THE LINE DAILY DESERVE A PAY RAISE BEFORE THE DOUCHE BAGS IN POLITICS TRYING TO LINE THEIR POCKETS EVERY CHANCE THEY GET.

The only problem with those three steps is politicians need to push them, and the last one will definitely be a huge turn off. So before we fix the budget, we need to fix the politics behind the problem. Get the money-grubbing dickheads out of control and let the public make the decisions. The government that is by the people and for the people needs to go back to that standard. If the current politicians don't want to do what is best for the American society, then hang up your damn ties and let somebody who wants to do right by this country step in and get to work.

I know there are people that will argue my point, but then everybody has that right. I just want to see this country get back to the greatness it once deserved.

@ sctt-The flat tax is still too much. It still leaves the problem of moral hazard-congress will spend every cent it can to buy votes and funnel cash to special interests, as well as leave debt for future generations. Plus, it is still not allocated, as taxes are supposed to be by Constitutional mandate.

If spending were kept withing the boundaries specified in the Constitution, no direct taxation would be necessary at all.

What?

You mean re-set Congress and the Senate to what they were originally intended to be.

Congressional Represenatives elected by the people.

Senate (to shorten the explanation) 'elected' by the money (Corporate Represenatives). (WITH THE CORPORATIONS PAYING ALL THE TAX)

and the President Elected by the People.

IF GOVERNMENT WAS MANDATED TO ONLY SPEND WHAT IT TOOK IN WE WOULD NOT BE IN THIS MESS.