Straight talk on the federal budget

Paul J. Gessing

From NMPolitics.net - by Paul J. Gessing, Rio Grande Foundation - Particularly in this political season, the tendency is for the media and politicians to ignore what then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen called, “The biggest threat we have to our national security” – our debt. After all, no one running for office wants to be seen as taking government benefits away from people. To make a dire, but complicated budget situation easier to understand, imagine a pie chart divided up into four approximately equal parts. They are: military, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and everything else. About 25 percent of that “everything else” is not spent on actual programs; rather it is spent on interest payments on the national debt. Unfortunately, the amount of spending done on these programs far exceeds tax revenues collected. This year, we are overspending by $1.3 trillion or so, or more than 36 percent of the federal budget. That $1.3 trillion must be borrowed, thus adding to the burden on future generations. Total federal spending has doubled since the end of the Clinton Administration (from $1.8 trillion back in 2000 to $3.7 trillion this year). Tax rates can be raised and lowered, but they cannot solve the problem. For starters, if the federal government simply confiscated all of the wealth of anyone in the country who earns $250,000 or more annually, we’d have about enough to bridge the deficit for one year. But, taking that wealth is a one-time operation. What do you do beyond that? Read column

Straight talk on the federal budget