Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

oof.  That would leave a mark.

A... DEN... mark.

Anyone got a taser

Which is another reason to go ahead and do it and put to rest the idea that it would make a difference.

But yeah, ideologically I'm also not in favor of ANY more taxes, the government already takes more than it should and wastes far too much of that.

I definitely agree that it is MUCH more of a spending problem than a revenue problem but revenues could reasonably be a bit higher.  

For eight years from 1995-2002 we had roughly balanced budgets.  Back then revenues and expenditures each averaged a hair under 18.5% of GDP:


Compare that to the last eight years:

As I said, I agree that it is MOSLY a spending problem.  When comparing 1995-2002 to 2017-2024 we see that spending has increased by 5.32% of GDP so that is the bulk of the problem but revenue is down by 1.71% of GDP so there is a revenue component to the problem.  

That's true if you think revenue collection was okay where it was in 95-02.

If you think that even then too much was being collected, well then we only have a spending problem and not a revenue problem.

On an ideological level I agree with you but on a pragmatic level this just isn't practical:

Before WWII we had single-digit % of GDP spending.  Then spending shot up for the war.  After the war it came back down and was actually under 11% in 1948 but by 1953 it was back up to almost 20%.  In the last 70 years (1955-2024) spending hasn't been below 15.72% of GDP in ANY year and it has averaged almost 20%.  It just isn't realistic to think that US Federal spending is going to get a whole lot lower than that and if "we the people" demand spending at levels close to 20% of GDP then ultimately we are going to have to pay taxes at levels close to 20% of GDP.  

In the last 70 years (1955-2024) US Federal spending was <16% of GDP twice, in 1956 and 1965.  It was <17% of GDP a grand total of five years:  The aforementioned two below 16% and 1955, 1957, and 1966.  It was below 17.5% in 13 years and it was below 18.5% in 24 years:

That is about one-third of the years since 1955 so the other two-thirds had spending in excess of 18.5% of GDP.  That tells me that, as a practical matter, US Voters are not going to support spending much below about 18.5% of GDP so taxes are going to have to collect somewhere close to that.