Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Being financially responsible undermines the US government!

Yes, you heard me right. US tax revenues suffer greatly when you are financially responsible. Undermining our government's ability to spend their way into favor.

Think about it. When you earn enough money, the government gets a nice slice of it from income taxes to spend. If you put that money into savings or use it to pay off debt, it ends there. But if you quickly turn that money around and spend it again it can generate sales tax and corporate profit tax and the government gets more slices. Then it can be paid out in wages again, provide yet another slice and so forth repeatedly. Even better yet, go into debt! Provide even more money into the spending cycle. Each change of hands generates tax revenues that the government can spend, spend, spend. So the more times money changes hands the bigger the government's pile. Mind-boggling, but if the same dollar changes hands enough, it will provide more than a dollar in tax revenues to the government each year.

The US government depends on it! As shown by recent events. When increases in savings and reductions in debt cause a decrease in spending, incomes drop, profits drop and tax revenues drop very quickly. In part from our being financially responsible and reducing debt while saving like we should.

The problem is the dependency on a "boom" level of money cycling. Can we spend our way back into prosperity again? Or realize that there is a different kind of prosperity that comes with responsible living...?

1 comment:

Susan said...

I've said much the same thing at the start of this recession and the whole "government bailout" thing. If the government bailed out "the little guy" (or for instance, me) then I would spend money which would generate jobs and taxes and boost the companies that the government was bailing out.
Nice to know I'm not the only one thinking this way.