One of the most divisive issues in this country right now is taxes.
And understandably so.
Everyone hates taxes.
And everyone wants someone else to pay all the taxes.
Also, we have a massive budget deficit right now, and most reasonable people know that they only way to balance the budget will be to cut spending growth and pay more taxes.
And no one likes the sound of more taxes.
But who pays those taxes, anyway?
How much is too much?
What's fair?
Who should pay more?
We can't really have an intelligent discussion of taxes without knowing who pays them.
And, politically, it's "silly season" right now, with each side saying whatever it thinks it has to to win, so we can't rely on politicians to tell us about taxes.
So, let's put aside politics for a few minutes and look at some facts...
For the purposes of these slides, we will be talking about FEDERAL taxes. If there's one government that everyone hates paying taxes to more than any other government, it's the federal government. So we're going to focus on that one. Federal tax revenue, as you can see, is still going up.
As a percent of the economy, though, federal tax revenue is actually well below average--only 17% of GDP.
Of course, federal spending is off the charts.
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