* Doug Pensinger ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > Good post, Erik, thanks for the time you put into that. I'm not sure > about the sales tax part, but otherwise it looks like a solid system.
Actually, if you take out the sales tax, it becomes a less solid system. > But its not the future yet, right? I'm asking why can't we do > something with the money in the meanwhile? Providing the government > could come up with it somehow of course. I am talking about PRESENT value. There IS NO EXCESS MONEY. There is a present value deficit of more than $7 trillion. It is not meaningful to talk about some money being different than other money -- money is fungible, and we don't have any excess. In 2004, the US government spent $400 billion more than it received in taxes, meaning the government borrowed more than $400B in 2004. There is no excess money. Now, if we were to implement a national sales tax, bring back the estate tax, drastically slow the growth of social security and medical spending (including repealing the wasteful and unaffordable drug bill Bush passed), and cut other wasteful government spending (farm subsidies, missile defense, manned space missions, etc.), then maybe we could get the budget into surplus again and raise national savings. Then indeed we could "do something" with our savings (like maybe invest it?) and even lower or eliminate the current account deficit. -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
