Congress likely to raise debt limit again.
David S:
Congress Must Raise Debt Ceiling
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com
Treasury Secretary Paulson on Monday said the United States may be unable to pay bills this fall unless Congress raises the government's borrowing authority, now capped at $8.965 trillion. Paulson, in a letter to lawmakers, estimated the government is likely to bump into the statutory debt limit in early October. "Accordingly, I am writing to request that Congress raise the statutory debt limit as soon as possible," Paulson wrote. He did not say how much more borrowing authority the Bush administration needs. -Associated Press
Source: http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=46550
There is nothing surprising here since the federal government has not balanced the budget since 1960. But I post this because it means we are approaching another milestone of debt; $9 trillion.
MODU:
There was a good article out the other day which I need to find again talking about how 75% of the federal budget will be spent on entitlements by 2030. Balancing the budget will never occur (though I kinda disagree on the concept to begin with) until we put an end to these wellfare state programs, or at least, reform them with caps. An attempt to balance the budget will simply lead to hiking the tax rate, which, in return, removes the incentive to actually cutback spending.
nlm:
Provided only as a frame of reference.
Total Receipts for '07: 2.662 trillion
$1.2 trillion - Individual income tax
$927 billion - Social Security and other payroll taxes
$315 billion - Corporate income tax
$68 billion - Excise taxes
$29.2 billion - Customs duties
$25 billion - Estate and gift taxes
$51 billion - Other
Total Spending for '07: 2.8 trillion
$699 billion (+4.0%) - Defense
$586.1 billion (+7.0%) - Social Security
$394.5 billion (+12.4%) - Medicare
$367.0 billion (+2.0%) - Unemployment and welfare
$276.4 billion (+2.9%) - Medicaid and other health related
$243.7 billion (+13.4%) - Interest on debt
$89.9 billion (+1.3%) - Education and training
$76.9 billion (+8.1%) - Transportation
$72.6 billion (+5.8%) - Veterans' benefits
$43.5 billion (+9.2%) - Administration of justice
$33.1 billion (+5.7%) - Natural resources and environment
$32.5 billion (+15.4%) - Foreign affairs
$27.0 billion (+3.7%) - Agriculture
$26.8 billion (+28.7%) - Community and regional development
$25.0 billion (+4.0%) - Science and technology
$20.1 billion (+11.4%) - General government
$1.1 billion (+47.6%) - Energy
These are just numbers from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget%2C_2007
opebo:
Quote from: MODU on July 31, 2007, 10:22:21 AM
There was a good article out the other day which I need to find again talking about how 75% of the federal budget will be spent on entitlements by 2030. Balancing the budget will never occur (though I kinda disagree on the concept to begin with) until we put an end to these wellfare state programs, or at least, reform them with caps. An attempt to balance the budget will simply lead to hiking the tax rate, which, in return, removes the incentive to actually cutback spending.
No, one can easily 'balance the budget' without increasing the brutality of the State, Modu - simply raise taxes. Of course I advocate greatly increasing the welfare state.
David S:
I finally discovered a use for the "ignore" button. :)
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