Taxes, taxes, taxes...

Read this article in NRO. Bruce Bartlett writes the article as an expose for the "overtaxed" rich. However, the beginning of the article is the most interesting: In 2005, the federal government took $2.4 trillion out of the pockets of the American people. To put this number into context, it is about the same as the size of the entire U.S. economy in 1959 in inflation-adjusted terms. Only two other countries on earth have economies as large as our federal government: Germany and Japan — and Germany just barely makes the cut, with a gross domestic product of $2.7 trillion. China, which everyone is so alarmed about, has an economy significantly smaller than the federal government, with a GDP of $1.9 trillion — about equal to what the United States raises just from taxes on individuals. And yet the deficit grows... Bartlett then proceeds directly into feeling sorry for the wealthy, who pay "the vast bulk of federal taxes". He does not, however, examine where the $2,400,000,000,000 has gone, and whether or not it was worth it. Why not? Perhaps because a Republican Congress and Executive approved it all? Maybe we can gain some insight by looking at the Discretionary Budget Request for 2008. Check out that massive chunk going to "defense" - more than 50%. Although I have not seen the statistics, one can assume that a similar percentage was realized during 2005. This is over $1.2 trillion in personal taxes. Also, the US Census information on Household Income suggests that the top quintile of the population makes as much money as the other 4 quintiles combined. One might expect them to pay most of the taxes. So Bruce, if you are so concerned about the amount of taxes being paid by the defenseless "wealthy", perhaps addressing the sources of the spending would be a good place to start. Bartlett addresses this somewhat in his article Our Taxes are too High, but he cites the wrong cause: "...taxes are going up because of the vast government spending in the pipeline due to the aging of society." Due to the aging of society?? Over half of 2008 discretionary spending goes to defense, with less than 2% going to Social Security and Medicare. If aging is such a large problem, shouldn't more discretionary spending be going there? Perhaps Bartlett is suggesting that a possible solution for the "aging of society" is to send them to Iraq. Soldiers that are deployed there are less likely to contribute to the aging problem.