A Thousand Words
Seeing as how today is Friday, I figured I would give you a break from what has become my increasingly verbose writing style, allowing you to focus on a picture that I hope will haunt you for the rest of the weekend. This is my gift to you.
If you clicked the link above (and then the orange one on that page that says, “View an interactive breakdown of where your tax dollars go in the President’s Budget”) then you saw what I am talking about. If you were waiting for me to describe it before clicking for fear that it would contain something unfit for work, rest assured that all you will see is a bunch of colored boxes with some writing in them. Go ahead.
The most striking thing about this map, to me, is the left-hand side. More than 40% of the map (and thus more than 40% of our federal government’s budget) is dominated by only two programs: healthcare and social security.
Looking back at the history of social security, we learn that it was not a reality until 1935, when unemployment rates among senior citizens exceeded 50%. It was later amended in 1965 to include healthcare for the elderly (Medicare) and for the poor (Medicaid). For those of us born after 1965, it is hard to believe there ever was a time when these programs did not exist, but the fact remains that we spend 40% of the federal budget on programs that are relatively recent inventions.
Another invention -- although not such a recent one, and one that I’m sure most people these days have accepted as an inevitability -- is income tax. America didn’t even have an income tax until 1913, although we have always had one since then, and likely will continue to have one forever. Once the government gets used to operating with a certain amount of money it is difficult to ever get them to cut back.
And so I invite you to ponder the question: “What would you do if you lived in a world where such inventions as income tax, Medicare, and Social Security did not exist?” Would you squander the extra cash just like you do when you get your tax return check in the mail, or would you treat that extra income as a way to save for a future devoid of such a generous Uncle Sam?
Either way, it would stimulate the economy.
Note that I am not eliminating Medicaid. This is for two reasons: 1) for most people, income tax does not equal 40% and so we don’t need to eliminate the entire 40% chunk, and 2) I think providing healthcare for the poor is more important than providing it for the elderly (although if the elderly are poor that's sort of another story).