Paul Krugman on progressive budget

[Derechos]

Source: NYT

Op-Ed Columnist
Let’s Take a Hike
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 24, 2011


snip

The point is that we aren’t that heavily taxed, either by historical standards or in comparison with other nations. So if you’re truly horrified by the budget deficit, why not propose tax increases as part of the solution?

Wait, there’s more. The core of the Ryan proposal is a plan to privatize and defund Medicare. Yet this would do nothing to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years, which is why all the near-term deficit reduction comes from brutal reductions in aid to the needy and unspecified cuts in discretionary spending. Tax increases, by contrast, can be fast-acting remedies for red ink.

And that’s why the only major budget proposal out there offering a plausible path to balancing the budget is the one that includes significant tax increases: the “People’s Budget” from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which — unlike the Ryan plan, which was just right-wing orthodoxy with an added dose of magical thinking — is genuinely courageous because it calls for shared sacrifice.

True, it increases revenue partly by imposing substantially higher taxes on the wealthy, which is popular everywhere except inside the Beltway. But it also calls for a rise in the Social Security cap, significantly raising taxes on around 6 percent of workers. And, by rescinding many of the Bush tax cuts, not just those affecting top incomes, it would modestly raise taxes even on middle-income families.

All of this, combined with spending cuts mostly focused on defense, is projected to yield a balanced budget by 2021. And the proposal achieves this without dismantling the legacy of the New Deal, which gave us Social Security, and the Great Society, which gave us Medicare and Medicaid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/opinion/25krugman.html?hp

[Scuba]

1. More (including links to the Budget and other references)...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x955902

[dkf]

2. The big increase in medicare costs happens between 2020 and 2040.

See chart 7 of the Citizen's Guide to the 2010 budget.

http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2010/10guide.pdf

Do we warn citizens that either benefits will go down or taxes/premiums will go up or do we ignore it til it happens?

[The Magistrate]

4. Even The Kremlin, Ma'am, Contented Itself With Five Year Plans

Projections over ten to thirty years are worthless.

[dtotire]

3. Thank you for posting

I like to read Krugman, but since the NYTimes has started charging for reading online, I haven't read any of his columns recently, Please continue to post his columns.