This is my distillation of what the average American should know about the "debate" transpiring in Washington about the deficit.
I. Government spending over the past 20 years has increased at a lower rate than any of the other factors contributing to GDP.
II. The deficit crisis was created by a combination of events, but mostly by:
a. A global financial crisis precipitated by a combination of factors, not the least of which was a bubble in the real estate market which was used to feed the financial markets collateral to include in financial products which the banksters hawked to their customers, while they in turn placed bets that those products would fail. This is called "financialization". This process was facilitated by deregulation and lax enforcement of existing regulations governing financial markets from the mid/late 1990s onward.
III. The financial crisis reduced government tax collections at all levels.
IV. Individual income tax receipts account for 42% of US tax receipts. Social Security and social insurance taxes account for 40%. Corporate taxes account for 9% of US tax receipts.
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