Well, certainly with liberals in government. He says this as he slams Obama
(Politico) Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Monday he thought the 18 percent tax rate paid by President Barack Obama and other wealthy people was too low.
“The fact is we can’t run this country based on the amount of revenue that we’re collecting today,†Murphy said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe†during a discussion that related to the rate Obama had paid.
“We can’t collect 18 percent from people making that much money and be able to afford to build roads and bridges and educate kids and do the medical research we used to,†Murphy continued. “We just sort of need to make a fundamental admission that this nation can’t run on collecting 17 percent of GDP and that largely needs to come out of the pockets of the people making that kind of cash.â€
Have they tried? Before the Progressive era of US government started, they had no problem running it with less. Government spending at the start of the 20th century was 7%. Then Los Federales decided that they were going to pay for everything and create tons of entitlement programs and was taxpayer money in idiotic programs, along with shifting more and more power into the hands of the federal government, which increased spending.
The problem here is that politicians, especially Democrats, want more and more of your hard earned money. On the flip side, the same people who advocate for higher spending and higher taxes aren’t willing to pay more themselves. Mr. Obama could have not itemized, not taken all the deductions allowed, and payed the full rate. Did he? Obviously not.
And let’s not forget that the States still spend quite a bit of money themselves. And that almost 50% of the citizens have a net zero federal tax liability, which also decreases the amount of revenue that the States collect when the federal tax liabilities are imported into the State tax forms.
I’d be interested to see Chris Murphy’s tax rate. Oh, wait, it was a measly 22.4% federal for 2011. Oh, and he’s been late in paying his property taxes before. Step up, Chris, send a check to the IRS.
BTW, 17% would be around 2.66 trillion dollars.
They don’t get it. We don’t need that much government. Get them out of our lives.
Sadly, too many Republican officials want big government and spending, too.
Remember those balanced budgets during the Clinton Administration for which the Democrats claimed credit? Total feeral outlays in FY2000 and 2001 were 18.2% of GDP.