Michelle Bachmann Agrees With My Analysis of the Deficit Problem

I doubt that Michelle Bachmann has read my blog, but her analysis of the deficit problem is close to mine.  At the Republican debate in New Hampshire on October 11, she echoed my theme of several recent posts by quantifying the deficit as a percent of the total budget.  This shows the size of the deficit compared to total expenditures, a relationship of which most Americans are unaware.

The transcript is as follows:

REP. BACHMAN: -- “Our government right now -- this is significant.  We are spending 40 percent more than what we take in. We all paid a lot of taxes this year.  We paid $2.2 trillion in taxes. That's a lot of money from all the American people.  The American government spent a hundred percent of that 2.2 trillion (dollars). But the travesty is they spent 1.5 trillion (dollars) more than that. That's the problem.  Every year, we are spending about 40 percent more than what we take in.

Our answer has to be that we cut back on the spending so we get to balance.  We can't do this because all --

MR. ROSE:  Will cutting back on the spending --

REP. BACHMANN:  -- all around us are young people that are going to be paying for this burden.  And their tax rates won't be our tax rates.  Their tax rates could come at some point, their overall effective burden -- I'm a federal tax lawyer; that's what I do for a living.  And my background is in economics.  Their tax rates some day in their peak earning years, Charlie, could be as much as 75 percent. Who's going to get out of bed in the morning to go to work, if they're paying 75 percent tax rates?  We've got to get our spending house in order and cut back on spending.”

Good work, Michelle.  Keep it up.  Maybe we can educate the American public.