I'm always a little suspicous of someone who tells me to "do some research" while providing no references, links, or numbers that weren't pulled out of their butt, heh. So:

http://www.photius.com/rankings/tax_...anks_2009.html
Demonstarting USA is ranked 48 out of 65 assessed countries in overall tax burden (not limited to just income tax!) Nearly all other OECD, especially the first worlders, have a greater tax burden, and few of them are attempting to, how can I put this neutrally, do what we do with our military.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...veloped-world/
Tax revnue as a percentage of GDP

http://www.forbes.com/global/2006/0522/032a.html
Another tax burden assessment, but this one using 2004 data, which is not too far off since Bush II tax cuts came into effect in 2001 and 2003.

So yeah, I think our revenue stream compared to the rest of the developed world is lighter. So how about that tax burden compared to other decades? I have mostly 2010 data, so we shall see how 2011 and the sloooooww recovery impacts them, but for now the numbers are pretty convincing regarding our low tax burden:

US tax burden lowest in 60 years as a percentage of GDP, coming from Bruce Bartlett, Reagan and Bush I economist:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...s-high-or-low/

Again, US tax burden lowest point in 60 years, including National, State, and Local taxes:
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/201...4091273594893/

Tax burden as share of national income lowest since 1966:
http://innovationandgrowth.wordpress...t-40-year-low/
That link has the added advantage of showing a table further down that illustrates how much higher the true tax burden would need to be to pay for the deficit. Looks like around 12% to me.

Another lowest in decades:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/...10-taxes_N.htm


So yeah, circ, I took your advice, and did some research.






Quote Originally Posted by circmand View Post
You pick 2 taxes and rates that help your otherwise false propaganda. The overall tax burden on the American citizen is higher than at any time in the past except during WWII. It is the highest it's ever been in relation to GNP and as S&P stated it is unsustainable for even the next 10 years let alone continuing onward. BO state tax the rich. At what rate? If you took 100% of the richest 10% in the country it wouldn't pay the debt we owe China. It's illconceived. There used to be a time we helped our fellowman without the Liberals telling us how much we should help them. Now we have 70 government organizations redistributing $700,000,000,000.00 every year and the problem gets worse and the solution is more organizations and more wealth distribution. Quit listening to the politicians who get reelected by continueing to feed this monster and do some research.