Is our nation economically doomed like Europe? I’m not a doomsday guy, but logically the answer is eventually YES.
Two factoids indicate that we are at or past the “tipping point”:
1. 48.5%, of the population lived in a household that received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/3lqyslj (WALL ST JOURNAL)
2. 51% of American households paid no federal income tax in 2009, but 30% actually made money [from EITC] under the current system.
http://tinyurl.com/3poldg7 (WASHINGTON POST)
Both factors are scheduled to get worse. Entitlements will grow both in amounts and the number of people covered. Meanwhile “the rich” will pay for it all — or, more likely, we will defer the reckoning via debt and expanding the money supply.
This sad Ponzi scheme is — as the environmentalists love to say — unsustainable. Yet politically we can’t significantly reform it either. I see no way out of this mess.
And then on top of that federal “plan” is the California state and local madness. Hoh boy!
Comments 1
Author
I might add that, as best I can tell, the EITC “negative income tax” payment is not counted in the above group that receives “government benefits.”
If true, then we are uncomfortably past the 50% recipient tipping point — even considering that many EITC recipients also get other government giveaways. I welcome any clarification on this matter.