Taxes, Spending, and the U.S. Government's March Toward Bankruptcy

ISBN-13: 9780521869331 / Angielski / Twarda / 2006 / 262 str.

Daniel N. Shaviro

Opis

What's in a word? Plenty, when it's a word such as taxes, spending, or deficits that pervades Washington political debate despite lacking coherent economic content. The United States is moving toward a possible catastrophic fiscal collapse. The country may not get there, but the risk is unmistakable and growing. The fiscal language of taxes, spending, and deficits has played a huge and underappreciated role in the decisions that have pushed the nation in this dangerous direction. This book proposes a better fiscal language for U.S. budgetary policy, rooted in economic fundamentals such as wealth distribution and resource allocation in lieu of taxes and spending and in the use of multiple measures (such as the fiscal gap and generational accounting) to replace misguided reliance on annual budget deficits."

Recenzje

“Daniel Shaviro has performed an important public service by showing how our thinking about the federal budget has not kept pace with advances in economic analysis. Although we are now in the age of the Internet, we are still using horse-and-buggy budgetary terms and presentations. The result is that both policymakers and the public are misinformed and ill-informed about the looming fiscal crisis when the baby boomers retire. When that day comes, it is essential that everyone has a better understanding of the nature of the budgetary problem and options for dealing with it. "Taxes, Spending, and the U.S. Government's March Toward Bankruptcy" is a big step in providing that understanding.” --Bruce Bartlett, Nationally syndicated columnist

Spis treści

Part I. Labels and Consequences: The Failure of our Fiscal Language: 1. Fiscal language and the fiscal crisis; 2. Taxes, spending, and the size of government; 3. Fun and games with budget deficits; Part II. The Why and How of Long-Term Budgeting: 4. What are we talking about when we talk about budget deficits?; 5. Long-term measures in lieu of the budget deficit; 6. Fiscal gap politics; Part III. Labels and Policies across Budget Categories: 7. Benign fictions? Describing social security and Medicare; 8. Tax expenditures; 9. Welfare, cash grants, and marginal rates; Part IV. Conclusion: 10. Some modest proposals.